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I Once Thought: Pokemon Misconceptions

theshadedmistress

theshadedmistress

For those who don't know, a misconception is, put simply, a view or opinion that you think is true but really that view is false.
So, a lot of us might have thought something in Pokemon was true, but later on we found out we were wrong! Whether it be pronouncing a name wrong or believing a myth where you could get a certain pokemon by performing certain actions, you're free to talk about anything you once thought was right in the pokemon world!

That being said, I'll start: I once thought Shedinja was pronounced Shed-Ninja. I also never pronounced the second 'e' in Keldeo (Thus being Kel-Doh!), and thought the Poketch was actually named Poketech. Though I still call it Poketech because I think it sounds cooler.8)

I once thought Silver was a girl when I first played Pokemon Gold (Being five or six at the time). Oh, the girly names I used to name him. And yet I knew Bugsy was a boy, but I didn't think Silver was...:'|
 
Shiny Motley

Shiny Motley

2016 Singles Football
I used to think Pikachu were based off rabbits! When my friend told me they were literally called the Mouse Pokemon, I didn't believe them for the longest time.

Also didn't know that the Gengar line were part poison until about 4 years ago. Doesn't help that ground-based moves (one of poison's weaknesses) have no effect on them :p
 
Curtkid

Curtkid

Good God, where do I start?

Back when I first started playing Pokemon Red when I was eight I was afraid to evolve my Charmander into a Charizard because I thought it wouldn't listen to me anymore due to what happened with Ash's Charizard in the anime. I even told this too all my friends who hadn't gotten a Pokemon game yet. You can imagine my relief when Charmeleon evolved into Charizard and still listened to all my commands and I learned that not all Charizards are dicks, just Ash's (or it was at least).

Another good one was when I thought I needed a Sun Stone to evolve Eevee into an Espeon, I mean, it made sense. Espeon the SUN Pokemon requiring a SUN STONE to evolve, I'm sure it would be a natural misconception for a ten year old to make. I ended up thinking that the stone wouldn't work because my Eevee's level wasn't high enough (again, ten years old) so I kept leveling her up and trying to use it every two or three levels. The irony here was that she eventually evolved into an Umbreon and I had no idea why. Ahhh, the day's before looking things up on the internet.

This one I learned recently I'm ashamed to say, was that Meganium is pronounced Meg-gah-nee-uhm. When I was a kid I always pronounced it Meg-neat-um (I know, there's no "T") and I sort of just stuck with calling them that all through out my childhood.

I probably have a bunch more but I can't remember them right now, outside of a few silly rumor's (ie: fishing at the Day Care in Gold and Silver for two hours straight and you'd fish up a silver Staryu, knocking Mewtwo out in Red and Blue would cause Mew to appear, ect), I may post more of them later if I remember them, I know I got some good ones buried in my brain somewhere.
 
Javelin

Javelin

I took a hiatus from Pokemon after Gen 2 until well into Gen 4 before getting really back into things. As a result when I first got back into the Pokemon gear I was discovering hundreds for the first time ever.

One of them was Chimecho. Now that I know better it's head-slappingly obvious, but at first I never made the right connection. I pronounced it "Chim-e-cho" for nearly a year before I heard the name properly spoken. Somehow, I never put together the word "echo" in there, even though reading the Dex descriptions on the thing should have given me the obvious hint.

The only other misconception I can think of comes from way way back, when I was a kid of about 12 playing the newly released Gold version. I thought at the time that Ho-oh was objectively the better Pokemon of the two version mascots because it represented gold which is more valuable and "better" than silver, and because it was "more legendary because of the first episode appearance and game story", that these things meant that Ho-oh was the top Pokemon ever made...when in reality, objectively speaking, Lugia is superior. I chalk that up to just being a kid though, because that shit is all kid-logic and in classic kid form I would not have listened even when told otherwise by someone with objective facts anyway.
 
Aura

Aura

Probably the biggest one I believed as a kid was that if I played over 300 hours on a Pokemon game all my Pokemon would die. I actually know where this idea would have come from. Its related to the battery running dry which could prevent you from saving and changing the battery would most likely result in losing the save file (RBY and GSC), or it would stop all clock based events (RSE). So an actual legit fear, its more that I thought they'd die because they got too old (plus I was playing Emerald so really there was nothing to be scared about). It was for the same reason that I tried to never get my Pokemon to level 100 - I thought that they'd die shortly afterwards due to becoming old.
 
Keleri

Keleri

Back in the RBY/GSC days I didn't understand EV's and IV's, so I thought that you could get max stats eventually by training and using the stat items (e.g. Protein, Carbos, etc.). I got in trouble for listing my pokemon as being all max stats on online tournaments. CHEATER. Whoops.

I didn't understand the multiplicative nature of types, either, like for example a three-type pokemon with Steel/Dragon/Flying would still be 2x weak to Ice (0.5x2x2=2) but I wanted to believe it would have no weaknesses. And actually my brain still kind of rejects the math sometimes, I want to believe in qualitative ideas about the types.
 
theshadedmistress

theshadedmistress

Ah yes, I remember something else now. I once thought you you actually had to buy a Slowpoke Tail from that man on Route 32 in Pokemon Gold. Because the Rocket Grunt blocking the Azalea Gym said he wanted one, I thought that if I gave it to him he would move and open up the Gym, allowing me to progress further in the game.

I think I had even evolved my Totodile fully into Feraligatr, just through wild/trainer battles trying to accumulate 999999 pokedollars...:'|
 
glaman5266

glaman5266

theshadedmistress said:
Ah yes, I remember something else now. I once thought you you actually had to buy a Slowpoke Tail from that man on Route 32 in Pokemon Gold. Because the Rocket Grunt blocking the Azalea Gym said he wanted one, I thought that if I gave it to him he would move and open up the Gym, allowing me to progress further in the game.

I think I had even evolved my Totodile fully into Feraligatr, just through wild/trainer battles trying to accumulate 999999 pokedollars...:'|
Click to expand...
The first time I played through my Red version I thought I had to get that much to purchase a bike. I decided to forget about the bike, but then I met the chairman of the Pokemon Fan Club. I was pretty happy I took the time to listen to his Rapidash story. :D
 
Linkachu

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
For the longest time I believed that Grass-types resisted Rock-types attacks, and even though I noticed over and over again while battling that this wasn't so it still took me ages to get through my head that Grass-types do not resist Rock-type attacks. I blame the fact that Grass-types resist Ground attacks and many Gen 1 Pokemon were Rock/Ground dual-types. xp
 
PokeMario

PokeMario

theshadedmistress said:
For those who don't know, a misconception is, put simply, a view or opinion that you think is true but really that view is false.
So, a lot of us might have thought something in Pokemon was true, but later on we found out we were wrong! Whether it be pronouncing a name wrong or believing a myth where you could get a certain pokemon by performing certain actions, you're free to talk about anything you once thought was right in the pokemon world!

That being said, I'll start: I once thought Shedinja was pronounced Shed-Ninja. I also never pronounced the second 'e' in Keldeo (Thus being Kel-Doh!), and thought the Poketch was actually named Poketech. Though I still call it Poketech because I think it sounds cooler.8)

I once thought Silver was a girl when I first played Pokemon Gold (Being five or six at the time). Oh, the girly names I used to name him. And yet I knew Bugsy was a boy, but I didn't think Silver was...:'|
Click to expand...
I actually heard Shedinja being pronounced as Shedinjaninja once.
 
Aura

Aura

Remembered another one. When I first got fly I thought that it would only work if the Pokemon had visited the town before, not the player. Cue me running around Hoenn taking ages to make sure I visited every single town with my Swellow, only to try and use it and notice that a place I hadn't visit was still able to be flown to. Whoops, that was a waste of time >>
 
NerdyNinja

NerdyNinja

I always called Greninja Gredninja I have no clue why I stuck the D in there, I still call him Gredninja because it's Awesome!
I also thought Gligar was Poison/Flying, because it even said in the Pokedex the Flyscorpio Pokemon.
So... how does a flying Scorpion become a ground type???
Also did not know about Missig No. I was playing Pokemon red and tried a cheat and I found one, I freaked because I thought the game broke, but it didn't and I ended up having alot more items from then on...
 
Kawaii Unicorn

Kawaii Unicorn

I once got a wurmple and started freaking out because it was "shiny" and when I was about to get a hoopa for it someone told me it wasn't shiny. (it wasn't shiny, I'm just weird)
 
Starfall

Starfall

Shiny Lyni said:
I used to think Pikachu were based off rabbits! When my friend told me they were literally called the Mouse Pokemon, I didn't believe them for the longest time.

Also didn't know that the Gengar line were part poison until about 4 years ago. Doesn't help that ground-based moves (one of poison's weaknesses) have no effect on them :p
Click to expand...
Wait... The gengar line is half poison?! XDDDDD I suck
 
Kawaii Unicorn

Kawaii Unicorn

In first grade some kid told me that mewtwo had Pokeballs that could trap humans and I believed him cause the only Pokemon I knew was shiny eevee (which is still my favorite pokemon) and when my friend said no to that I freaked.
 
L

LightBreaker08

I have a lot actually. A lot is me thinking a Pokemon is a certain typing but isn't.
For example, like everybody else I used to think Lugia was a water type.
It's also only very recently I found out Ralts, kirlia and Gardevoir wasn't grass type before gen 6.
I also used to think Gyarados was a dragon type. (Though, that is rational since there are no signs of it being flying)
I used to think Ho-oh was a Fire/psychic type, instead of flying, and I used to think Volcarona was Fire/Flying.

When it comes to weaknesses and resistances I used to be very dumb..... Very very dumb.
I used to think if something was weak to something, the thing it was weak to resisted it, which is just not true. There are a lot of types I never knew were good against another, or just the other way around. For example I used to think Steel was good against fire, or the fact I used to think Water was good against steel.
I also never knew immunities existed... At all. And much more.

When it comes to Pokemon pronunciations there aren't that many I pronounced wrong, in fact a lot of the ones commonly mispronounced I've always said right. For example I've always said "Mean-shao" Instaed of "Mi-en-shao". The only really bad one I could think of is Floatzel, which i used to pronounce "Fleetsel", please don't ask me why, I don't know.

I can't really think of too many more right not.
 
NonAnalogue

NonAnalogue

When I played through Blue for the first time, I thought for sure that Venonat had just one eye in the middle of its face.
Spr_1b_048.png

I don't remember what I thought its actual eye was, but there you are. I actually kind of like the one-eye look better for it.
 
OnePiecefan11

OnePiecefan11

Because of that goof up in one of the episodes of the Hoenn region anime, I used to think Arbok evolved into Seviper. I guess it was because they're both poison type and snakes so I assume the anime was correct. I also used to think Venomoth was bug/flying type.
 
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