Pokémon/Headscratchers/Archive Late 2010: Difference between revisions

** Not any more than [[Akira Toriyama]], that's for sure.

** I wonder if he'll ever use something like Lantana.

** Teen rebelliousness and acting out that dies down with maturity.

*** Vigoroth don't gradually mature and re-evaluate their worldview like a human teen might. Presumably, they're wild and energetic one moment, reach level 36, and then suddenly evolve to lose all interest in anything but eating and sleeping.

** Gift From Mom, sometimes. In at least one set of games (The second generation?) it was from the/a local Professor.

*** They're delicious. Same reason why lemonade is the best curing item ever.

** The Ken Sugimori illustrated card "Mom's Kindness" shows Dawn's mother slipping a Potion into her bag.

* The addition of new Pokemon always bugs me. Are the lands so isolated that we don't know any Pokemon from other lands? I know there are out of universe explanations, but in universe?

*** emerald fixes this by having groudon under there. the eruption would have presumably woken it up

*** Not to mention the fact that an erupting volcano would be far more likely to destroy every nearby town and ruin the land, making it impossible for humans or Pokemon to live there. Then again, Team Magma's plan was to cause a volcano to erupt by using a meteorite.

* Why is the main character constantly asked to deliver packages and letters in the games? Do those regions not have a postal service or something?

** With ten-year-olds running around for free labour, as well as pokemon such as Zigzagoon or Wingull that can deliver messages...Who ''NEEDS'' a postal service?

* Am I the only person who thinks that Fire types should be strong against rock types (considering some rocks can be melted at the right temperature), and poison strong against fighting and water types (Since water can be polluted and most fighters are beaten by getting poisoned, though a cliche in movies)?

** Well yes, rocks can melt. At ridiculously extreme temperatures. You put a rock in your average campfire, and it's just going to get hot to touch- it's not going to get changed. Most fire types don't spit out fire that hot. With poison vs. fighting, there's a case for it, but there's also a case then that poison should be strong against all the meatwads. For water, I would tend to think the opposite- poison gets quickly diluted in water and rendered ineffective.

*** You didn't really explain the deal with poison vs fighting.

**** Sure, he/she/it did, if not very clearly. Since fighting types are assumed to be buff, fit pokemon, it could also be assumed that their bodies would be more capable of resisting and filtering toxins. In metaphor; If you present one dose of venom to yourself (A "normal" body), and one dose of the same venom to Michael Phelps (A body that's in ridiculously good shape), Michael Phelps is a lot more likely to come out of it with less damage than you are.

***** And is also, apparently, you.

**** During the very very first episode of the anime, the Pokedex said something about Ratata(actually I can't remember what pokemon it was but let's say it was Ratata) and how it likes to play pranks on stupid trainers? All I know is that it called Ash stupid.

** The Pokedex research are based from YOURS, or rather, THE CHARACTER'S point of view. It's like a scientific diary or journal or something. Obviously if you're just 10 yrs. old you'd exaggerate.

*** When did you fit in the scientific research between catching the pokemon and seeing the entry. Apparently, Prof. Oak's dream is to have a random kid enable every entry in the Pokedex. Imagine a hacker getting ahold of a Pokedex. "You captured every single Pokemon in the world? You were never even given a starter pokemon!" I'm seriously starting to doubt Oak's trustworhiness.

** Well, my [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]] is hardly challenged at all by Ranger's concept, honestly, mainly because it looks only like a gentler variant of how in normal Pokemon games, attacking wild Pokemon much more offensively than in ''Ranger'' and ''"enslaving"'' them in Poke Balls causes them to be perfectly obedient and friendly to you as you use them in battles from then on. I just figure that there's some sort of X-technology-or-element within Poke-Balls that's magically infused with the feelings/personality of the trainer holding them, which is mixed with a generally becalming influence in that same technology/element, and when a Poke Ball captures a Pokemon these feelings and that influence are projected as one to the Pokemon enough that the creature is mentally persuaded to accept/not be overly angry at whoever captured it (That would be my answer to other Poke Ball-related questions below). The Ranger Styler here appears to use this same system in a different way, which in this case is administered in incremental "jolts" with each loop of the Styler's energy-line-looping setup, jolting any Pokemon within the loop's field with this influence until the influence's been layered enough times that the Pokemon isn't angry at you and other things in general. Well hey, maybe Pokemon are a lot more agreeable to being enlisted by humans temporarily if they aren't being permanently "enslaved" in Pokeballs, which is why this strange and more cumbersome-looking Ranger method actually works?

*** I feel there's a strong subtext of dominance under the Pokémon concept. Something in the veins of the good ol' "I'm stronger than you, you should join me!" stuff. But at least in the games it makes sense, it feels more like you are ''forcing' the Pokémon into becoming yours(the whole weakening and, sometimes, rock throwing stuff). Ranger just makes it look stupid, every five minutes reassuring it's not "beating", but "befriending".

* Why do Venonats look so much like Butterfrees? Did the sprites get mixed up or something?

** This Butterfree/Venomoth peculiarity actually appears to be a mistake. While there are plenty of different species that look similar, it's clear that Butterfree and Venomoth had their sprites switched somehow (Personally, I like to imagine it happening like those old Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercials). First, compare the appearances of Venonat and Butterfree: Butterfree shares Venonat's feet, hands, mouth, eyes, antennae, and body colour - especially notable considering the fact that Venonat is nothing more than a purple puffball with said features. Venomoth, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing in common with Venonat. Next, compare Venomoth to Caterpie and Metapod. Again, they have a suspicious amount in common. They have the same eyes, the same basic body structure, and the same forehead crest - compare Metapod's head to Venomoth's. Butterfree looks nothing like its evolutionary family. There's really no denying it - Nintendo made a mistake. It seems like they slipped up in the first generation of Pokemon games - rather than owning up to their blunder, they left it as it was.

*** Wouldn't they realize this obvious mistake on the test stage? I mean, it's not like they just program the game and send it to the stores, there's tons of tests to do, ''someone'' would have noticed that.

**** Because when you're constantly finding obvious mistakes, obvious starts to become a bit relative. Sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes to relaize the obvious mistake because you know something is supposed to happen that way and dismiss it, and then the guy you're impressing by testing the game points out that, yes, making the pokemon very weak makes it easier to catch like it's supposed to, but shouldn't knocking it out completely make it ''extremely'' easy to catch? Shouldn't the game just say no when you use a rare candy on a level 100 pokemon? And then you start searching for the minor bugs, so the fact '''j''' finally works overshadows the fact '''x''' is now half broken. Because after the 256th time playing through this part, you know you can do '''y''' to get to '''j''' faster or '''z''' to skip it entirely. And this is unrelated to Pokemon, but imagine the sorrow of a programmer with no tester. That 256 estimate listed above? More like 1024. Programmers in general are screwed, really (but, even as a programmer I must admit I feel sorry for the Pokemon graphics designers. Imagine how much they'll have to do in the 6th generation with 700 something pokemon in 3D, but probably still with all the darn 2d sprites, too).

**** I'd say the name of the company has very little bearing on whether or not you're inclined to make mistakes. We also are explicitly talking about the sprites here, so the names have no bearing either.

**** Does that even matter? The point in case is: Venonat looks like it'd evolve into Butterfree, whoever the designers are(Gamefreak, I suppose?), that's the point. How does a gnat turn into a moth, anyway?

** [[User:Pro-Mole]] calls coincidence. Something in the veins of "parallel evolution", the fenomena that created a marsupial version of many non-marsupial creatures in Australia (including the noiw extinct marsupial tiger, actually a stray dog). That, or the people at design didn't know how to make segmented eyes in a different fashion...

** Or guessing by the fact that they're the same type of Pokemon with simular evolutionary lines, they may well be related species.

*** Dude! [http://veekun.com/dex-images/yellow/048.png Venonats!] Not Venomoths! Look at those eyes and mouth. And not just sprites, but the official art, too.

** Well, if resemblance had to be a guide on evolution, Bellossoms shouldn't evolve from Glooms (do they? They changed so many things that I don't even know anymore), but from Roselias...

**** This is a recent problem, though. In the first game with breeding, Ditto could breed with another Ditto just fine, producing more Dittos until the cows came home. Nintendo took that out when they made the breeding more sophisticated, when Ditto started to have more effects on the offspring.

***** Really? ''Why''?...

******* And now most breeders just get a hacked ditto. There are also limits to what can be done to improve stats (+ 8 point on every stat, if I remember it right), so it's far from absurdly overpowered.

* Size is fundamentally messed up in the Pokemon universe. But still, they could have avoided putting a freaking ''whale'' in the game (Wailord) who should be able to win fights just by being launched from a Pokeball and crushing his opponent to a pulp. As it is, you can defeat the thing with a suitably leveled Pikachu.

*** Well, we've seen Giant Pokemon before, so a Giant Skitty probably isn't too out there, evening things out a tad. Conversely, a Giant ''Wailord'' probably doesn't bear thinking about.

**** Not to forget miniatures of said Pokemons, or dwarfmons.

** Not to mention how one of the largest Pokemon is such a sissy. Onyx is apparently made of ancient styrofoam or something.

** You mean [http://razorcat.deviantart.com/art/Wailord-used-BODY-SLAM-106280391 like this]?

* How the heck can Pokemon fit inside Pokeballs? Not only that, how is it that just by catching them they are instantly brainwashed into obeying the trainer?

** In the original games and manga, they're shrunk. In the anime and later games, they're turned into pure energy and stored away. As for the second question, according to the anime, at least, wild Pokemon that attack trainers actually ''want'' to be caught, but only by strong trainers, and they battle to see if they're worthy of training them.

*** Of course, a few of Ash's have skipped the battle part and gone staight to joining his team. Perhaps his previous actions in the same episode count as proof enough...

***** Wait, I thought they turned into data, and that's how they're stored on PC? Which also explains why Porygon can manifest in the real world - it's just the same process backwards.

** In the manga, at least, badges ''literally'' brainwash pokemon (love and affection just make it [[More Than Mind Control]]).

* The 'Two-type' limit aside, why aren't Charizard and Gyarados Dragon-types? They're Dragon enough for Clair and Lance, both Dragon trainers...

** Probably because of competitive balance. (Seriously a starter with the over powered dragon type?)

*** To the above troper; I think you're forgetting to put stats and items into consideration. No way in hell a Pichu is going to one-hit kill a Gyarados unless it's severely shifted in the rodent's favor.

*** Pichu's are legally able to learn Volt Tackle (an egg move). And even Thundershock will be absolute murder at x4 damage.

**** On top of that, getting a Pichu with Volt Tackle involves getting a Pikachu with a Light Ball, which is kind of a [[Disc One Nuke]] itself.

** Because typing was seriously screwed up in the first game. Things like the number of Grass-types which are also Poison types, a ludicrous 33 poison types out of the 151 original Pokemon, and the complete lack of effective attacks against Psychic-types. Although it is interesting to note that in the first game Dragon and Ghost types are the only ones super-effective against themselves, each of them is only present on one evolutionary line consisting of 3 Pokemon, and neither has any substantive attack moves.

*** Ignoring the fact that the question was hammered between two others... you make them sit upon it, like a baloon. That, or they stay floating and causing a force field downwards, making the scale accuse a weight. Maybe that's why they weight so little, measurement error.

** You think that's bad? Giratina, the legendary dragon/ghost type pokemon, weighs over ''1600 pounds''. Seriously, if it's solid enough to weigh over half a ton, then it should be solid enough to be affected by normal and fighting type attacks.

*** And, oh: think about this: one cubic decimeter of water weights 1 kilogram, roughly 2 pounds. It is "solid enough" to weigh all that, but still punching water will not cause it any damage. Just because something weights a lot, it doesn't mean it is ''solid''.

*** For the record, Gardevoir is 5'3", which is pretty much the height of this underweight, short Asian troper, exactly. My weight? About 106 pounds.

** If you put gas in a container, it can get onto a scale and you can get some readings on it. Really, the difference between gas and solid is that gas molecules are not attached to each other and solid's do. As to how they don't get damage from Normal or Fighting, maybe they just phase out or something.

*** Maybe it's only ''wild'' Beldum, Magnemite, etc. that evolve via bonding. Like a weird social practice. In captivity these pokemon can evolve on their own, but within their own cultures there is a stigma attached to solo evolution. Completely baseless? Probably, but the games seem to be offering no explanation anytime soon.

* Another breeding issue would be egg groups and who is or isn't in them. The most glaring example would probably be the Ralts family. They all look like they belong in the Humanshape breeding group, due to being very human-like, but instead, they're in the ''Indetermine'' egg group. Meaning that they breed with blobs and ghost Pokémon.

*** They may ''look'' humanlike, but they don't necessary ''reproduce'' like the Humanshapes. For all we know, they have acres of [[Naughty Tentacles|icky ghost tentacles]] under those skirts.

** The Humanshape group itself is very odd by including things that are Human''shaped'', but not necessarily humanlike at all. [[Squick|Hot Cacturne]] [[High Octane Nightmare Fuel|On Illumise Action]], [[Brain Bleach|anyone]]?

** The worst part is the fact that the pokedex is often very mean. Rhydon is stupid, Croagunk is sneaky, I can't remember the actual entries off the top of my head, but they can be very scathing. Joan Rivers, Pokemon Prof, anyone?

*** Groagunk is described as sneaky ''for survival''. Think of it like how some animals in real life are scavengers: They aren't doing it to be mean, they're doing it because it's their niche in the natural order. And gyarados being angry is much the same as alligators/crocodiles being angry: It's how their brains are developed. Calling a rhydon stupid ''is'' mean, though...

* What does the bottom half of Diglett look like?

** A friend of this troper suggested Diglett's have a pointy bottom, whilst I assumed they were just flat. [[Noodle Incident|It's probably for the best that we don't know.]]

*** I always figured that it was something like [http://hail-nekoyasha.deviantart.com/art/Biglett-26374938 this.]

*** They have feet. That much is certain.

*** The 3D-Incarnations on occasion show that Diglett has no lower body and ends flat when they're subjected to attacks that launch them into the air.

*** Which brings up the even more nonsensical fact that even bug/flying types that are bigger than the trainers (Yanmega, in particular) can't learn Fly at all.

** Or using Golem while surfing.

** In the anime you actually can't use many water Pokemon effectively without water present.

** Simple: you don't necessarily actually ride on the Pokémon when Surfing. You Surf on a piece of driftwood or something and the Pokémon makes the thing stay upright on large waves, rather than forcing submersion into large waves as when it is used as an attack.

*** I may be wrong, but I think "fainted" is only what it's called in the English version. In the original Japanese it's just "unable to battle," which is also used in the English dub of the anime.

*** An interesting bit of Fanon gives the pokemon an invisible energy field that protects them from serious damage. When the pokemon's HP runs out, they remain conscious, but the field disappears, and it's illegal to force the pokemon to fight past that point.

** When you raise a cat and a dog at the same time they get along pretty well, too. Since you and the daycare are raising your Pokémon, it is safe to assume that they can get along if they are raised to do so. Pokéball brainwashing may help.

* How do the Jennys and Joys all look the same? Do they get surgery to make them look the same? Do they reproduce asexually? Are they all Ditto? Or do they kill their kids when they don't look exactly like them?

 

* Eggs. It bugs me that every, and I say ''every'' species of Pokémon, no matter if it's a bug, a reptile, a mammal, a plant or a frikking machine, it lays eggs. Any possible explanation?

** To save on cart memory, presumably. In universe, it's probably a compatibility thing, to allow the various Pokemon types to interbreed.

** I always thought of Pokemon as a unique species on their own, just with different variations. It's like how all dogs could interbreed, even though there are tons of different types of dogs.

**** The manga based on the anime says explicitly that all Pokemon are indeed one species, and that all of the different varieties (no matter how different they look) are sub-species. However, how canonical this is with anything else is unknown.

***** Now that you mention it, they ''do'' mate anyway. Still, cows laying eggs is just... weird.

**** Pokemon breed with each other to produce fertile offspring. They are a single species by definition.

**** ...or maybe that's only the case for that special egg coming from a deity, that will hatch into a deity? I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I couldn't read the Japanese text... =/

** To confuse issues, there's quite a few Pokedex entries, even after breeding was introduced, that strongly imply mammalian-type births, or even exotic non-egg births. Seems even the creators treat it as just a gameplay mechanic simplification.

* And BTW, what's with the plant Pokémon? I mean, there are no real animals, and there are Pokémon counterparts for them. So why do real plants co-exist with plant Pokémon? And while we're at it, what'd the deal with fish, too?

** Someone answered this already; normal animals exist and are rarer.

* So, any actual(i.e., in-show/game) reason to why Pokémon can't be kept outside their Pokéballs? Strangely, to a show that works upon trust and friendship aesops, keeping your said friends in vacuum sealed receptacles several times smaller than themselves isn't the best example I've ever seen...

** Let's see. They're designed to be comfortable. There's a definite advantage to being able to hold an injured Pokémon in a Pokéballs to reduce the amount of pain and risk of aggravating injuries, not to mention how it seems to counteract certain status ailments. Even outside of those circumstances, it seems that trainers spend a lot of time walking long distances, and not forcing smaller or slower creatures to keep up on foot if it isn't necessary is appealing. Your Fly-equipped Staraptor will be relieved to know that it won't have to carry your Steelix, and the same goes for any Surfers.

** And before I forget, it was only the fourth episode of the series when Ash was accused of neglecting his Metapod by not recalling it as soon as it was threatened by Beedrills. And the third episode where he was criticized for not letting his Pidgeotto rest after a battle.

** Yellow has the Pikachu out of a ball until it's fainted. Heart Gold and Soul Silver will have some feature that lets the Pokémon be outside the balls. I think mainly it's just convenience.

** People in this world consider ten a good age to someone to quit school and leave their home. They clearly have a terrible educational system.

*** Or a [[Beyond the Impossible|very, very ''good'' education system]].

** A possibility is that it's a wireless-internet-accessing PDA, so it acquires information on the individual pokemon in question, adding it to a database and downloading the general information on the species. This would also explain continued education; Trainer's Leave is simply an indefinite state of handling one's education over the internet. The reason it's never shown being used for that is simply because homework is boring.

** It already has the info??? From what I remember, it analyzed the Pokemon when captured to create the entry. Which doesn't explain why you can't just find one, analyze it, and run, but still...

***** In the anime, the creator of the pokedex admits to making much of it up.

** Varies between the games, anime, and other media.

*** If the pokedex is as powerful as some of the media make it out to be (e.g. be able to analyze pokemon and record data such as their height, weight, habitat, act as a router to the PC system, exercise control over your [[Mons]], etc.), then why on earth can't it run rudimentary apps such as a 10-digit calculator and coin flip program (seriously, you're losing in versatility to a freaking watch?), considering all of the programs people can run on considerably less impressive graphing calculators in real life?

** They seem to be immensely rare pokemon, like Lapras. For some reason, stronger pokemon tend to be a lot rarer. Professor Oak says that they were just caught in the wild. By the next game, more people have found them, but evidently, they are incredibly uncommon. Presumably, they don't breed that well, and as such, if you killed all the ones you met in the wild they would quickly become extinct.

** Are they rare? I just thought the fact that they didn't appear in the wild was a game mechanic.

*** HG/SS also has the event Pokewalker course "Shopping" which allows you to catch wild Torchic, which seems to suggest that Game Freak are slowly working towards having more starters available.

** This troper has the belief that the starters are imported from regions that haven't been seen in the games.

* So the Pokemon universe has clearly mastered the ability to transport both organic and inorganic matter across vast distances instantaneously. Why are there still cars? Why are there still transportation vehicles? Why aren't there teleporters everywhere? Outside of trainers who need to walk around looking for Pokemon and other people who work in nature. It can't be that hard to teleport things, it happens to countless Pokemon everyday.

** Giovanni bought them all for one of his hideouts.

*** That sort of makes sense given that Bill's attempt to teleport himself accidentally turned him into a Pokemon. But then there are teleporters in gyms that you use...

**** Except that Gym teleporters are driven through the trainers ''psychic powers'', at least in Sabrina's case. In other cases, it's possibly psychic pokemons.

*** Pikachu's electric attack was responsible for the seizures; that could very well have happened in any other episode. The idea of human transport was never brought up again, presumably for the same reason Porygon wasn't, which still escapes this troper. Not to mention, all of Dr. Akihabara's (the creator of the project) work was destroyed at the end of the episode, and it would probably take years to do it all over. Judging by the ages of the characters, time just plain doesn't pass in the anime, [[Comic Book Time|but then again...]]

** Possibly, teleporters are too short-ranged/must be directly connected via wires to be efficient other than as a gym puzzle or for navigation through a large building.

* In the RBY (and Fire Red/Leaf Green I suppose) games, you encounter Gary in Silph Co., literally one room away from Giovanni. You needed to have a Card Key to get that far, so why didn't he go and whack the Pokecrap out of Giovanni himself? He even mentions Giovanni after you beat him, so it wasn't like he simply didn't know (unless he's blind and didn't notice the hundreds of Grunts and whimpering employees). Same goes for when you're in Pokemon Tower along with the possessed nuns and Rockets. Does he simply not care?

*** You're looking for [[Insurmountable Waist High Fence]].

** Keep in mind that you can also ride a bicycle full speed into a wall or another person without anyone getting harmed, also. Hell, your bike is so magical it will just ride in place if you try to ride straight into the water.

** Hm, this one's gotta be divided in topics. But before that, PMD is another world entirely, where humans don't exist. In the "normal" games, they simply evolve anywhere.

## Level up: trivial, here just for the sake it;

** [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jirachi For the last, it already happened.] Okay, it's not an actual [[The Lion King|giant ball of gas burning millions of miles away]], but you get the picture.

*** They'll probably retcon Arceus into something lesser than a god, or make some lesser Legandary that's just so cool that nobody cares about how it's a step down. However, I have a particularly disturbing thought about catching legendaries. Isn't it kind of irresponsible of the trainer to catch Pokémon like the Lake Trio, Dialga/Palkia, the Birds, and especially Arceus? Does nobody stop to think that maybe it's a bad idea to put those Pokémon in the balls or on the computer when they have very important work to do, such as keeping spacetime, emotions, and the elements under control?

**** [[They Might Be Giants|About 93 million miles away! That's why it looks so small!]]

***** Yeah, but there's only one star that close. The next closest is 2.4 * 10 ^ 13 (93 is 9.3* 10^7). Since "star" is generally used to refer to the ones outside our solar system, we can take that as a minimum. More likely, it is even farther out than that.

****** Technically, that's still millions. It's just a whole lot of them.

*** Groudon and Kyogre created the land and the sea, but only in Hoenn? Dialga and Palkia created time and space, but only in Sinnoh? We're talking about concepts that exist worldwide, and the only real way to justify local pantheism in [[Real Life]] is to claim that other religions are ''wrong''. Unless the Teams of each game found out that their legendaries of choice were incapable of doing the things they wanted...

**** Maybe it's a case of misleading pantheism due to the fact that they're so-called legendaries(and they look fucking awesome). As far as I know(no, never been to Hoenn, indeed), the Teams never succeeded, so they didn't actually find out that they ''are'' indeed, incapable of the things they're accounted to do. After all, My Dialga ''can't'' stop time and crush the enemy team to a pulp while time is stopped... okay, jokes aside, the Pokédex says that the back of Shedinja's shell will suck one's soul into it. When the Pokémon fights with its back directly towards you. Get my picture? Simply putting, local pantheism is still a valid alternative.

** They haven't really gotten stronger and stronger. Mewtwo has been sitting pretty on his 'strongest pokemon in the game' throne for about a decade; the only pokemon that came close to threatening him was Deoxys. Oddly enough, Arceus has the power to trump him, but then Arceus can trump anyone with the right item. So Game Freak doesn't mind making legendaries that aren't QUITE as strong as the current king of the hill.

** Something to consider is whether or not the legendary pokemon actually ARE as strong as the legends imply. In Platinum, after beating the Elite Four, you can go back to the cave in Celestic City and talk to Cynthia again. There, she mentions the possibility that the ancient people who wrote those myths only believed Dialga and Palkia to be rulers of time and space because they saw them using their signature attacks. In other words, the legends quite possibly blow the apparent power levels of the pokemon out of proportion.

*** In the games, the Pokedex guy is {{spoiler|you}}.

* Why is nobody bothered by the casinos? I mean, ignoring that the first one was run by a criminal syndicate, they all allow 10-year olds to gamble. Now, I'm willing to accept that 10-year-olds can go on long journeys, they travel in groups and have monsters to protect them. We never see the kids drinking, even in the anime, so there's clearly laws regarding sale of alcohol to minors, or else Brock would be a lush and would be hanging out in bars. So why are there no laws regarding forbidding minors to gamble? As young persons whose brains are not yet fully developed, they cannot make completely rational decisions, which, while helpful in dramatic battles where thinking outside the box with regards to magic monsters is a plus, this lack of rationality is much less helpful with regards to gambling away life savings, which I'm sure all of us players have done at some point in the poke-casino.

** [[Values Dissonance]]. Japan has a history of circumventing gambling laws with machines that take and accept 'tokens' that can be bought with money and exchanged for prizes, I've heard Shigeru Miyamoto himself often plays these machines. Seems Japan has much less of an issue with gambling than the rest of the world.

*** Arcades in the backs of bowling alleys, anyone?

*** /em takes another look at the local [[Suck E. Cheese's]]. I don't think it's really true values dissonance, just the sort of thing poeple tend to get upset about, even if they don't mind the real version.

*** Ironically you can still BUY coins in the casino at the price 1000 Poké for 50 coins...

** In FireRed and LeafGreen, at least, he doesn't call him a disgrace to Pokemon or whatever. He just says that the player won because the player cared for his/her Pokemon more.

* OK, what was Gary's starter? I don't remember that ever being directly answered in the anime. Was it that Eevee? If so, what the heck happened to Oak's Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander, and why do we never see their trainers?

** Wasn't he shown to have a Blastoise at one point? If so, there's a good chance he went with Squirtle (it's not Charmander, since we saw its original trainer in the episode we met it).

** Squirtle is definitely Gary's starter, it was confirmed. Eevee, he picked up elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Charmander and Bulbasaur Ash acquired are ''never'' hinted to be the same ones given to the other two Pallet town trainers. Remember that we meet Charmander's original trainer Damien? If he was from Pallet, Ash would likely have recognised him, it's a small town after all. The two Pallet trainers were stated to have given up training, it was never said that they abandoned Bulbasaur and Charmander.

** The absolute lowest level that a Dragonair would be able to know Hyper Beam is level 50. Then again, that doesn't help, since it would require that Dragonair to have been kept as a Dratini from 30-50...

** Have Dragonair hold back for one level to learn the move, then Lance either lets it evolve normally, or use a conveniently saved Rare Candy.

*** That could be true for the manga only. Though if it's true in all cases (and Lance's dragonair uses Hyper Beam in the manga), then yeah, Lance is a cheating bastard.

**** If that's the case, Lance can communicate with Pokemon in the manga, just like Yellow, and is a far more skilled trainer. He must have found a way.

** For proof that Game Freak has quite a ways to go, just look at the thriving fakemon community. If, for some reason, Game Freak decides "Okay, that's enough. We're out of ideas", it'll be once there are so many species that pokemon fans will start crying in unison "Please, that's enough! We already have way too many to keep track of!".

*** There's also James Turner, He designed the Baibanira and Goruugo families, didn't he?

*** Coconuts? Exeggutor would like to see you in his office.

* While we're at that... Venonat doesn't look like a Gnat at all. For starters, it doesn't have wings... why is it considered so?

* A [[Fridge Logic]], Mammalian-based Pokemon can somehow lay Egg. WTF?

** Pokemon aren't identical to real-life animals. And Pokemon ''consistently'' lay eggs if they have the capability. I'm not seeing the problem.

* The whole fainting thing always bothered me. I mean, there's flame throwers, some hot enough to melt rock, burning their flesh. Hyperbeams, solar beams, poisons, and some of them even blow themselves up. And they never die, only faint. Huh?

** It's the result of Satoshi Tajiri attempting to avert [[Death Is Cheap]] in a game about battling monsters. An admirable, if nonsensical attempt, if I do say so myself.

** ''[[Joust]]'' with additional heads.

** But at least ostriches have wings, if small ones. Doduo/Dodrio would have to just levitate or something.

** I figure they spin their heads or legs really fast like a helicopter rotor.

** The Japanese name can be translated as "Sky Jump", and the Dodrio line is known for their prowess at leaping.

* Inspired by the [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]] page - an psychic attack against a Level 2 bug-poison Pokémon by a Level 100 Mewtwo. I just wonder ... what does it do to that poor little Pokémon? I could imagine a 30-40 level differce to be a [[Mind Rape]] too close to the [[Moral Event Horizon]] for comfort. But a difference of 98 levels, what exactly happens there!?

** It must be something like that "this is your brain on drugs" ad...

* How the hell is Altaria supposed to be a Dragon-type? It doesn't have any draconic properties at all! Is there some sort of obscure myth that I'm missing? Bulbapedia says something about the [[wikipedia:Epsilon Draconis|star]] its Japanese is based off being in the constellation Draco, but name alone doesn't seem good enough to justify it.

** They were probably in need of more Dragons in Gen-III, and it was the closest thing to a dragon in the list. Really, it's already been brought up somewhere above...

*** Random people giving you a Evee/Porygon/Beldum just like that in the games makes the machine look entirely pointless though.

* In the Pokemon Special manga, during the Ruby/Sapphire arc, Hoenn was pretty much in mortal danger because of Kyogre and Groudon's fighting. Why then did Norman make Wally fight his way up 50 or so crumbling floors, which could not have taken a small amount of time, so he could help summon Rayquaza? Why not just fly him up there, as Norman was pretty clearly able to do so with that Flygon he had. I know, Rule of Cool and all, but it just seems like it was a big waste of time.

* What happens when you use the Poke Ball on non-Pokemon? Can you capture humans in a pokeball? What about inanimate objects?

** Well, Jessie got hit by a Pokeball, and she received a painful shock instead of getting sucked in.

** If the target receives the painful shock instead of the jerkass throwing the ball at them, it's probably not a coded failsafe rather than incidental incompatibility with human biology. Better that way, since a programmed failsafe could be hacked or reverse-engineered away.

 

** They could, but presumably they don't. I guess Pokémon naturally prefer to mate with their own kind. After all, note that you'll usually find more than one of the same type of Pokémon in any area. This probably means that they stick together in herds and flocks, so there would always be breeding partners available right there.

** As for the Sneasel with Ice Punch, that's actually pretty danged unlikely. Only the Buneary Line or a Delibird can pass that on to Sneasel, and they only learn it through breeding themselves. So to get a sneasel with Ice Punch, a wild Medicham or Hitmonchan or something has to breed with a Buneary, and then the offspring has to travel from around Eterna Forest, all the way to Snowpoint, and breed with a Sneasel. In the wild. Yeeeeeah.

**** Giovanni's barely ahead of the law by the time you fight him, and Cyrus is a pacifist ([[Omnicidal Maniac|sort of...]]).

* If the Pokemon Professors are such experts on all things Pokemon, why can none of them offer you anything above level five as a starter, or even fill in pokedex entries on the flying and normal types that live within easy walking distances of their labs? For that matter, why does the region's leading expert on Pokemon always live in the far corner of the region with the weakest pokemon? Wouldn't it make more sense for someone like Oak to live in, say, Saffron City, where there appears to be other research being done?

** Keep in mind the fact that the only professor who asked you specifically to go out on a journey to fill the Pokedex is Oak, who figures that you, his neighbor kid, will do just fine with it, and gives you a rare Mon to help you out. Elm just wanted you to run a favor for him, and gave you the starter as payment. You save Professor Birch with your starter, so he lets you keep it. Rowan either a/ wanted the Pokemon you chose to bond with you after spending some time with you, or B/ decided to give tthese two whacky kids Pokemon for giggles, before saddling them with a Pokedex.

* Grimer is created by sludge exposed to X-rays emitted by the moon...wait, what?

** [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Missingno TO BULBAPEDIA!] More seriously: the Rhydon and Kangaskhan evolutions are a result of their [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pokémon_by_index_number_(GB) location in the data;] that's why so many glitches turn into/evolve into one of the two.

* What the hell is going on with Steel/Rock's resitances and weaknesses? Both are resistant to normal-type moves, but weak to fighting-type moves. But the two move types are basically the same thing - hitting the opponent with part of your body. Take Mega Punch and Mach Punch for example, against an Aggron. Mega Punch is normal-type, with a base power of 80, twice as powerful as Mach Punch, a fighting-type move. But when you use Mega Punch on the Steel/Rock Aggron, its power is decreased to 20. But Mach Punch's power, used on Aggron, increases to 160. So the weaker move becomes 8 times more powerful than the stronger move, despite the fact that they do ''virtually the same thing!''

* Wait, Kyogre and Groudon were locked in a cataclysmic, never-ending battle until Rayquaza showed up and calmed them. But Kyogre is a water-type, and Groudon is ground-type. Water is super-effective against Ground, so Kyogre should have wiped the floor with Groudon.

** Remember that Groudon brings about droughts, meaning that it can cancel out Kyogre's flooding. Its rather large movepool also contains a number of Kyogre counters.

*** The regions we've seen in the core Pokemon games are just portions of Japan. As far as I know, we have yet to see an actual continent in the games. Also, real life continents have been referenced in the game, such as Mew being found in South America.

**** Don't forget Lt. Surge, the Lightning American.

* Grimer was created by lunar rays hitting toxic sludge. Porygon was created by a computer program. Voltorb is implied to be a sort of mutant Pokeball. If it's so easy to create Pokemon, why don't more people do it?

** Not to mention: Grimer is an accident, more than a creation, and Porygon, being a software, isn't all that simple to create(heck, I imagine how complex the API for creating a Pokémon is...) and may even not be open source... One of the few actually engineered and intended Pokémon was Mewtwo.

** [http://www.obakemono.com/obake/tsukumogami/ oh hai thar.] Think Tsukumogami on a slightly accelerated scale for Voltorb and similar.

** Clearly, Mew is just [[Memetic Sex God|so smoking hot that no poke]] ''cares''.

** Along those lines, Mew is said to be the ancestor of every Pokemon. But it completely lacks gender and can't even breed with a Ditto. So how did a Pokemon unable to breed end up with so many descendants?

**** And its placement in the [[Themed Tarot Deck]] suddenly makes a lot more sense.

**** Genderless 'mons ''can'' breed. Legendaries are simply put in a "no eggs" group.

** A Dragon-type probably wants to sleep on it.

** Line their nests with it?

** Buy items and TMs, of course!

* How come none of the NPCs will notice or care if you are walking around with a party of legendary pokemon, and why does no one care if you sic an Arceus on their level 2 Magikarp?

** Dexes are rare and precious things. Some random NPC isn't necessarily going to ''recognise'' Arceus or Giratina, and even if they do somehow, they won't necessarily know it's an actual [[Physical God]] rather than simply something that looks like a few old decorations from the Hearthome Cathedral.

** They do notice, but long ago a witch cursed them only to be able to say the same lines of dialogue over and over so aren't able to express their shock

* Pikachu is supposedly some kind of electric mouse that can shoot bolts of lightning...which it stores in special pouches in its cheeks. So wouldn't that make it more of a hamster? It's not even SHAPED like a mouse, for Christ's sake.

* Isn't it kind of irresponsible of the trainer to catch Pokémon like the Lake Trio, Dialga/Palkia, the Birds, and especially Arceus? Does nobody stop to think that maybe it's a bad idea to put those Pokémon in the balls or on the computer when they have very important work to do, such as keeping spacetime, emotions, and the elements and whatnot under control?

** The Master Ball can capture anything...ANYTHING...in just one attempt, without fail. Even Arceus. And it is a device developed by humans. I guess what I'm saying is that if humans have reached the point of developing technology that can reliably imprison and subjugate the gods themselves, maybe we don't need the gods anymore.

** ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure]]'' follows likewise, but with the Gym Leaders (Volkner is absent for undefined reasons). Cynthia's there, however, but she doesn't do much but stop Jupiter with one hit...which come to think of it is her role in the anime's Spear Pillar plot too.

* What is the point of Detect being a move? It's exactly like Protect, a move that can be learned through an infinitely available TM by any mon that can learn any TM, except it only has ''half the PP''. There isn't even any benefit to using both at once, since using either means the other it less likely to work that turn.

* Is the water used by Water-types consumable? The ninth anime movie shows Max almost drinking water that came from a Poliwhirl, but the plot stopped him from doing so; is it healthy? Is it unlimited? Why do some people (anime and game) seem to be thirsty if they can drink this kind of water?

** It's probably as drinkable as any other water available in nature. In other words, boil it first. They aren't firing tap water.

* And why isn't Lugia Water/Flying? It's the beast of the sea. Its counterpart is Fire/Flying. It lives on the seafloor and learns mainly water-type moves. So why is it Psychic/Flying?

** If it was Water/Flying, it would get an STAB, thus giving it more of an advantage over Ho-oh.

** On the last point, the bug-type may have been nerfed in that sense, but they got a buff in being super-effective against the Dark type and were given some new attacks like Megahorn that made STAB attacks actually useful. Also, Poison was also super-effective against Bug in Gen I, but were changed to being neutral.

** Dragon is too powerful a move type as it is. I'd prefer Ice gaining a resist to it.

 

 

** Because the number of real-world animal species probably isn't a round number either? Let's be honest, it would seem a little... weird. Plus, it's never been a round or meaningful number: first there were 151, then 251, then 386.

*** Irrelevant how? It would be strange and unrealistic if it was always a round number. Not to mention that the so-called "secret" Pokemon were never secret at all- Mew is explicitly mentioned as the progenitor of Mewtwo in Cinnabar lab, and Gold and Silver's big hook was "One hundred new Pokemon!" And if you don't count events, then that would make fourth-gen only 490, since Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus weren't officially revealed until their events. Everyone still knew about them, though, just like Mew and Celebi.

**** Irrelevant, because it has nothing to do with the question. The number of real-life species is also not a round number, but also in real life we can't send animals/plants/rocks/gods in vacuum sealed containers through the internet to wherever we are. Of the unrealistic things in the Pokeverse, the one that'd bother me ''less'' would be a round number of species(or items, berries, whatever).

* Aside from [[Competitive Balance]], why are Dark types immune to Psychic moves and resistant to Ghost moves? I don't think being sneaky or having black fur could offer 100% protection from [[Game Breaker|Mewtwo]] turning your brain into mush. While we're there, why is biting or sucker punching super-effective against Psychics that can see into the future and Ghosts that are essentially made of gas?

** Consider that Dark-types are known as "Evil" in Japan. What could be more devastating to a psychic than to peer into the mind of true evil? They can't do it without endangering themselves. (See ''The Cell''.) And without that connection to their opponent, their moves fail. As for ghosts, so many have been portrayed in the anime as happy-go-lucky pranksters that they just aren't conditioned to deal with true malice.

** Of course that doesn't explain why non-Dark types can use Bite and still have it work. Or why you can Tackle a Geodude for almost no damage, but Bite it for normal damage. Particularly confusing because Bite was a normal-type attack in Generation 1.

** It could simply be that most dark moves are tricky enough to throw off most defenses. A weak justification, but one nonetheless

* Why haven't any Pokemon professors ever mounted a hidden camera on a Pokemon and put it in the day care centre to see where the eggs come from or something? They're supposed to be researching them, yet they don't give a damn where they come from? Or are they just holding off from publishing this?

** Perhaps they ''do'' know and just don't want to tell a ten-year-old about red-hot Pokelove.

 

* How come Magnemite (and evolutions) and Glalie don't have the Levitate ability? They both levitate! It's blatantly obvious! There is no other way they could conceivably move!

*** How is ''that'' logical? If you were someone who has never seen an Absol before, you might think it's a little suspicious that a disaster struck right after this mysterious Pokemon showed up, doing something you've never seen other Pokemon do.

**** These are the same people that trust a 10-year-old with saving the world. Obviously, they are not the most rational of people.

**** Seeing as it can't speak or write, it's not like there's a way it can warn people that's super-obvious as being a warning.

**** "What's that Lassie? You pushed Timmy into the well. BURN IT!!"

** I think the idea is that they're paralyzed by pure [[Squick]].

** I'm not sure, I've seen this "Ghost Licks Paralyze" trope in other games as well, I think this might be [[Older Than They Think]]...

* So how does the education system work in Pokemon? How do kids get licensed as Pokemon Trainers?

** All children go to school for five years. After that, their grades are evaluated. 20% of the kids (those with the worst overall grades) are promptly given a "trainer's license" and kicked out.

* so where do trainers get money to buy potions and food anyway?

** ...Seriously? You don't know? It's not as if trainers are piss poor or that they don't have means to get money, or savings, or parents, or whatever, what kind of question is that?

* Are Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar forms of dead pokemon or are they their own entity?

** Well, we see a ghost Marowak, so we can assume actual ghosts take the form of whatever they were while alive. Since you can breed Gastlys, it's probable that they're simply their own species of gas things that happen to usually live in creepy locations, and people just thought they were ghosts.

** Electabuzz IS the superior electric Pokemon, even without evolving!

* Is there any reason why Gary decided to become a pokemon researcher?

* Who else thinks that there should be at least one type pair that can attack each other [[For Massive Damage]], and/or a pair that are defensively strong against one another, rather than straight-up [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]? For example, Psychic pokemon could be weak against Ghost attacks because they're more sensitive on the spiritual level, but Ghost pokemon are weak against Psychic attacks because they live entirely on the plane where Psychic attacks do their stuff and without a body to hold them together (metaphorically or literally) while they regain their senses, or the other way around where Psychic pokemon are strong against Ghost attacks because of practice in tranquility and focus, and Ghost pokemon are strong against Psychic type attacks because they're beings of spirit and Psychic attacks would just be fighting fire with fire. Yes, I know the "both attacks stronger than both defenses" makes more sense (and two pokemon that had strong attacks against each other would be less frustrating than two pokemon that could only use [[Cherry Tapping]] attacks against each other), and I have thought this about a couple of different elemental pairings, but I wanted to give a more impartial example.

** It took me some time checking the type chart on Bulbapedia, but I managed to remember the most obvious example of how that actually does happen alerady: Ghost and Normal; both types are completely unneffective against the other.

* What is the point of Phione? Is there some myth/legend that ties it up to Manaphy? It's pretty much just a clone only worse...

** It is an ''unevolved'' manaphy.

* A Magneton is composed of three Magnemite, but weighs more than ten Magnemite. [[Memetic Mutation|Fucking magnets, how do they work?]]

** A Magneton is only said to be comprised of three Magnemite in the Pokédex, which most people agree is inaccurate. In truth, a Magneton is just one Magnemite that has evolved. And like any other evolved Pokémon, it's bigger and heavier than it's previous form.

** It's probably just that it can hover above the ground, but it can't go any higher than that hover.

* Platinum's Battle Factory, Level 100 mode. Rhydon and Porygon2 can be used, but Pokemon such as the Hitmons, Ninjask, and Wobbuffet cannot. Also, they are the only two not-fully evolved Pokemon that can be used in this mode (Magneton, Dusclops, and others cannot be used, for example). Why is this?

* In ''Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Something-or-other'' (Frontier, I think), why did Clayton (the guy who used all of the ridiculous abbreviations) repeatedly call himself a Pokemon-trainer Martial Artist instead of a Pokemart? Did they just not want to stoop thjat low for the [[Stealth Pun|obvious]] pun?

** It's Sinnoh League Victors. Also, this makes me wish that Dawn had called upon Pachirisu, simply so he could have called him [[Don Pachi|Dawnpachi]].

* Pokeballs are around five inches tall. Voltorb are about a foot tall. [[Fridge Logic|How do you mistake a Voltorb for a Pokeball?]]

** If you mean the [[Chest Monster|items that turn out to be Voltorbs]], the Gamecube games show that the "Pokeball items" are not in Pokeballs, but Pokeball-themed chests, about the size of a Voltorb. Of course, they aren't ''shaped'' like Voltorb now... Maybe Orre's item boxes are just uniquely shaped, and the others are round?

*** This could be explained by a page in the manga that had many, many Voltorbs and Electrodes of WILDLY varying sizes, with some Electrodes as small as regular Pokéballs, and a Voltorb as big as a regular Electrode. No clue how that happens, but it was in the manga. x'3

** Said whale can also bounce. As can a fish with a tail that looks like wings.

** Why does said thousand-pound whale weigh less than a sixth the weight of a blue whale's ''tongue''?

**** Hell, how does something ''fifty feet long'' only weigh ''nine hundred pounds''? With some very rough estimation of its volume, it would appear to be less than twice as dense as air at STP (which incidentally answers your question as to how its body doesn't crush itself when on dry land...).

*** This also applies to a lot of fish Pokémon (except for the flailing Magikarp). In the 3D games they appear to be ''hovering''.

*** There seem to be two kinds of 'ghosts' in the pokémon-'verse. Ghost-type pokémon, who were never alive in the first place (or were, but have forms that remind people of "real" ghosts,) and ghosts of existing pokémon, such as the ghosts in the Old Chateau and the Marowak ghost in the Pokémon Tower.

* Thhe best bit of [[Fridge Logic]] has to be why one would have to use a Poke Flute to wake up a Snorlax blocking the road to battle it, only to ''put it back to sleep'' in-battle to make it easier to catch...

* Why are some shipping names so random? For example, VolknerxMaylene is called Firecrackershipping, which doesn't make all that much sense at all. If you're going to go out of your way and name a ship, at least make it make sense.

** Your first mistake was asking shipping to make sense... they have some logic behind it, but it's usually very strained or obscure. The best choice would be to avoid shippers altogether, after all, that's what I do...

* What's with the time? I called up Erika at 10 AM on Sunday, and she told me "I'm usually free Sunday mornings." Then I called Sabrina, who is free on Sunday afternoons, and sure enough, she was ready to battle. Since when was 10 o'clock considered Noon/Afternoon? Is that the way it is in Japanese culture?

** After 10 AM, it's called daytime (in G/S/C at least, don't know about HG/SS), and gym leaders call it afternoon for simplicity's sake.

* How in the world are the Pokemon Center's paid for? The trainer never pays for the Pokemon to be healed; where do they obtain the resources to run these facilities at no charge?

** I always assumed that one of the few things the government in Pokemon actually did was to pay for health care.

* There's Lemonade and Nomel Berries. Does that mean there are normal fruit and berries in the universe? Or should Lemonade be called "Nomelade" or even "Edanomel"?

** I'd like to assume berries replace fruit like Pokemon replace animals. "Lemonade" may just be [[Grandfather Clause]] in action. The only other problem is apples instead of Leppa Berries in the Mystery Dungeon games. While on the subject of fruit and berries, can someone tell me what Iapapa is based on? I thought papaya at first, but then we have Payapa Berries. The only other fruit that gets repeated is Yache and Custap Berries, but those are at least different names for the same fruit. Finally, why are there Shuca and Charti Berries if their inspiration isn't fruit (Cashew and Artichoke.)?

** We have a trope for this: The [[Nostalgia Filter]]. Oh, it was so cool because you have so many pleasant memories attached to Gen I...I play it nowadays even ''with'' said pleasant memories and it's practically an [[Obvious Beta]] of Gen II with all the imbalances, full house of glitches, the stat use that made ''no sense'', as well as stats that made ''no sense''...

* Shiny Pokémon. And I am not talking "whine, whine, whine they are way too rare."(Which they are, but that's the whole point of their existance.) No, what I am talking about are shinys who almost exactly look like their non shiny counterpart. Like the shiny Pikachu that is oh so slightly more orange than yellow. They did give awesome new colors to some Pokémon. The black Charizard is the best thing ever. So why do they give some other Pokés only those slightly lighter/darker colors? It can't be because they focused on the most famous Pokémon or Pikachu wouldn't be friggin' orange.

* Vending machines. That is not a can of soda or water that dropped down, my friend.

** Then what is it? Other than lemonade.

## Compact, portable design

*** Taking in account they seem to be made out of ''fruit'', I wouldn't be surprised if it was magic rather than technology. Besides, technology marches on and things get cheaper.

*** I'll accept that [[Poké Tech]]™ Co.Ltd.Inc. might take a financial hit for greater reception, but not that the technology could be cheaper in the Pokémon world. If it's cheap and compact, then every car and boat we've seen should hover instead of roll or float, and either the repurposed Pokémon Tower shouldn't need a ton of equipment on the roof or every building should have at least one teleporter - not just those of megacorporations, criminal organizations, and Gyms (Which I guess get a lot of TV coverage to explain their wealth). Even the super stores can't afford them! And with cheap shrink rays or matter-to-data conversion, who needs moving vans?

* I can't be the only one who found it slightly odd that all the trainers in Goldenrod gym (presumably including [[That One Boss|Whitney]]) managed to be taken out of the fight by a single Rocket Grunt, can I? I mean, even if the grunts at that stage were using level 24 [[Com Mons]], that's only 5 levels higher than Whitney's Miltank. Surely they could've gotten out of the <s>kitchen</s> gym and saved the radio tower without the main character.

 

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[[Category:Headscratchers]]

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