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Seven Greatest Wonders... of pokemon!

Their eyes aren't closed, they're just exaggeratedly narrow. There are moments when he gets that gelatinous gleam in his eyes, but they're still all squinty.

There is a shot of him at the beginning of a Johto episode with his eyes wide open. He was trying to entertain Larvitar by making faces and one involved pulling his eyelids all the way up. However, they were all googily with pinhole-sized pupils and most likely not representative of what his eyes would look like.
 

StellarWind Elsydeon

Armblades Ascendant
Staff member
Administrator
1. Because just because they're Japanese, doesn't mean they are COMPLETELY unaware of English. :p

2. Gym Leaders are licensed by the PokéMon League (of whatever region they're in). Their title is given to them by the league, giving them the privilege to hand out official league badges. I'd assume that in order to become a gym leader, you'll have to take it up with the league and pass some kind of test - possibly have your gym leader license renewed every few years, but I wouldn't know since no form of canon ever got into it...

God knows about the Elite Four, though. Their title is obviously also league-bestowed (interesting fact is that, in Japanese, the Elite Four are called the 'Four Emperors'), but that's where I don't have any further theories. I'll get back to you if any ideas come up.
 
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Let's again look at the biological aspects of Pokemon, like say...

Where does a Water Pokemon's Water and Fire Pokemon's Fire come from? (I like to particularly point this towards Blastoises, with their mysterious cannons popping up from the deep, dark and mysterious bowels of their shell...)
 
I never knew the elite 4 were called the four emperors in japan.
This makes the elite 4 seem a little bit less complex when you think about it. 97% of Japan's landmass is from 4 main islands, Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, therefore the elite 4 represent the strongest trainer from each region. Its entirely possible that in the original game the elite 4 were actually symbolic of the various beliefs surrounding each island...
To the north in Hokkaidō where it is incredibly cold comes the elite 4 member specialising in ice...
Then from the mainland of Honshū you have the fighting type trainer, this could be a reference to ancient bushido (I once researched the similarities between the two, theres a lot of them)...
Then you have ghost types from Shikoku where there are hundreds of temples and shrines honouring the dead...
Finally you have Kyūshū the first island to have settlers in japan, mythology about the start of their civilisation is filled with dragons ergo dragon type trainer.
 
Why is Eevee the only Normal-type pokemon that can turn into 7 different types of Pokemon? What makes him different from the other normal-type pokemon?

And why can hm moves be used in battles, but not outside of them if you dont have the required badge??

and who are the parents of Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny? (I mean, all those kids, that all look the same? and they are all the same age, damn, the mother must had a bad time being pregnant..)
 

Shiny Motley

2016 Singles Football
Eevee's genetic code is unstable, so it can mutate, according to some pokedex entries. (I think...)

And as for Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny..... They're all related, but that doesn't mean they're sisters. They're just cousins, second cousins, sisters, etc. At least, that's what I think they said in the Anime....

As for the HM thing, I guess the more badges you have, the more your pokemon will respect you, so they obey you more. Kind of like how traded Pokemon don't usually obey you until you get a certain badge.

My hunches on the answers. Maybe Stel can be a bit better at explaining these things...
 

StellarWind Elsydeon

Armblades Ascendant
Staff member
Administrator
Well, here's a few answers for questions asked lately.

Rocket X: There are two ways of explaining that. One indeed would be evading the question by saying that the simple logical explanation is that it's fantasy and fantasy doesn't have to make sense - but that's not the answer you're looking for, probably.

Another one completely detaches the attunement of PokéMon with nature and certain elemental planes and try to go wild with biological fancies. Fire types can be explained on the Bombardier Beetle/Pernese Dragon/Reign of Fire principle - two chemicals that are stored in different areas of the body and ignite in combination with each other, or one gas that ignites in exposure to air - or, in various cases, you could claim that some PokéMon have their own specialized biological mechanisms: For instance, saying that Charmander tail-tips secrete a flammable fluid as part of its metabolic process, and an array of quills at the tip of the tail rubbing against each other create sparks that make the thing burn, and thus the fire is and indication of its metabolism, explaining why the oxygen flame effect (the fire turning bright blue and hotter) occurs when metabolism is boosted, or why their flames extinguish when they die.

Water type -attacks- can be explained by using the environment as well as intricate layers and pockets of hydraulic muscles which can compress water to massive pressure levels, which are then directed through the PokéMon's mouth or specialized nozzles (such as on Staryu/Starmie, or Blastoise's cannons) - but that only explains the pressure and the nature of some attacks. As for where the -WATER- comes from in itself, I'm just as wtf'd about this as you are - because surely, something cannot be created out of nothing, unless if they all have an internal philosopher's stone, and wouldn't that make then red water PokéMon?

The true answer I believe is somewhere in between - Water-types must be connected to some kind of water elemental plane. Either that or their biology has officially broken my brain. ^^

Proximitus: The simple answer would be: Fanservice. Eevee was originally planned to have only three forms, but since everyone loved it SOOOOOOOOO much because it was so ZAWMG CUTE and the whole split evolution thing looked awesome... Game Freak just got crazy with the cheez-whiz and moments later we had like OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAND forms.

Now for a more logical answer: The Gen1 PokéDex explained it as having unstable DNA prone to spontaneous mutations. But as anyone with a bit of knowledge in biology can tell you, that's utter bollocks. Spontaneous mutations CAN cause a Pokémon to change in odd ways, but it can also cause it to grow random cancerous lumps, or be born, instead of a fuzzy cute creature, as a naked, vampyr-fanged beastie with a penchant for human flesh. Again that's Game Freak trying to sound cool and knowledgeable and failing, a-la the impossible temperatures of Flareon's internal combustion core, Vaporeon's molecular composition, Jolteon's accumulation of 'negative ions' and Deoxys' identity as a 'Space Virus'.

So, unstable DNA? nyet. Complex DNA? certainly. Many different possible evolutionary branches, that can be rather easily triggered? Obviously. My article on PokéMon Evolution on the main site should explain my theory on how PokéMon DNA really works, at least on the evolutionary scale of things.

So that's it for the Eevee subject.

HM moves out of battles would be irrelevant in a real-life type PokéMon world - as the whole badge thing is quite simply a game mechanic designed to prevent players from sequence-breaking. Badges aren't magical items with zomg powers over PokéMon minds. They are human-wrought metal thingies devised to show an accomplishment in a tournament-league-whatever organized by humans. And I can pretty much gurantee that if you show a ravenous, angry Tyranitar about to trample you and eat your mangled corpse your eight shiny badges, it will probably wonder why is that insignificant insect waving a bunch of funny metal pictures before its eyes and maybe wonder if they'll taste good going down - for exactly a second before proceeding to kill you anyway.

"LAWL RESPECT ME! I HAVE EIGHT BADGES!"
"... Oh, bugger off." (crunch)

Anyway - game mechanic to prevent sequence breaking, so there wouldn't be much need to explain it further than that.

Nurse Joys and Officer Jennies are all mass-produced clones bred in tanks by a shadow government organization for the exact specific purpose, and they're told they're all related to make them not ask questions about why they all look the same. Seriously - the anime explains them all as being distantly related - second cousins, cousins, mother's sister's cousin's nephew's former room-mates, y'know the ordeal.

The fact they all look the same is easily explainable: Do you honestly think anyone at the animé team has the time or energy to come up with unique individual secondary-support characters with a recurring role that ultimately mean nothing in the long run?

... Don't answer that, on second thought. Since that's about the role of every secondary character in the anime, other than to show off a new critter.

Thing is, they have the same role, so they don't need a new face. And it's a running gag. Like Team Rocket blasting off again. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. (And I honestly like the idea of clones. >>)
 
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and who are the parents of Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny? (I mean, all those kids, that all look the same? and they are all the same age, damn, the mother must had a bad time being pregnant..)

Nurse Joys and Officer Jennies all look the same for the same reason Brock, all his siblings, and their father Flint all look the same: They're all from different races of humanoid aliens that have settled on Earth. While alien, they are all genetically similar enough to humans that they are capable of breeding with them. Like the Klingons from Star Trek, they have very dominant genes. All female children born to a Joy or Jenny looks nearly identical to the human eye due to these dominant racial traits, although, as Brock said, there are subtle differences.

Of course, I think a better question is why they all have to same name, but the answer is quite simple: They don't. Joy and Jenny are there family names, and we just don't know what their given names are. A lot of them breed, but never marry. While others may marry into other families, some of them don't take their husband's name, but as for the rest the name "Joy" and "Jenny" are so associated with them that this is simply what everyone calls them and they don't bother to argue with it.
 
Why in the world are Arbok and Seviper considered Dragons when breeding?

When Cubone evolves into Marowak, does its helmet become its literal head now?

How is Poliwag able to use Double Slap?
 
1. Probably so they can be bred with Dratini, Dragonair, and Gyarados, which are the only other serpentine Pokemon that come to mind, without cutting them out of the Dragon group.

Frankly, I'd be more curious about why Arbok can breed with Glameow.

2. It's still a helmet, but it fits on tighter.

3. Its tail. Duh.
 
Considering Wailord's size, breeding almost any other Pokemon with it would result in misfortune for anyone except the Wailord. Then again, no one has actually seen a Pokemon lay an egg, so who knows where they really come from. Maybe they pray to the magical Pelipper. Who knows.
 
Perhaps the Wailord is usually the female one. I mean, for some of the larger Pokémon it can breed with it's not that big of a deal, but imagine a male Wailord a female Skitty. >_> That in itself is kind of a wonder...
 
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A Wailord breeding with a Skitty is pretty mundane in the bizarre world of Pokémon. However, where the heck does the Wailord go when it's at the day-care?
 
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In the console Pokemon games, fish-like Pokemon (except Magikarp) tend to float in mid-air. Wailord especially is like a low-flying zeppelin. (And yet, none of them have the Levitate ability...) My guess is that Wailord either hovers above the player's viewpoint, or there's a large body of water off-camera at the day-care center.
 
Okay, can someone explain to me why, in Emerald, Wooper can learn Dynamicpunch and ice punch when thye don't have arms? Are they using that stubby tail thing to "punch" things? And what ever happened to the SS Anne? It was said to travel all over the world, but it never goes to Sinnoh or Hoenn, though there is a model of it in Hoenn aquatic museum.
 
Okay, can someone explain to me why, in Emerald, Wooper can learn Dynamicpunch and ice punch when thye don't have arms? Are they using that stubby tail thing to "punch" things? And what ever happened to the SS Anne? It was said to travel all over the world, but it never goes to Sinnoh or Hoenn, though there is a model of it in Hoenn aquatic museum.
Correct on the first, second, who knows.
 
Consider that Johto takes place several years after R/B/Y, S.S. Anne would have been replaced by the bullet train (a mode of transportation no longer seen in the series) and Hydrofoil.

For Hoenn and Sinnoh, well, Idk since as far as I know in Hoenn there's only one NPC in the entire region that mentions the Kanto and Johto regions, although Sinnoh has a fair amount of mentions of Johto. However as the last 2 games break away from any sort of storyline the first 2 shared, it's safe to say S.S. Anne is either gone or it never existed in the 1st place.


And on another note, What's so bad about Airplanes in the Pokeworld? We have Blimps, trains helicopters and boats, but the modern world of Pokemon doesn't even have a decent glider...
 
Okay, can someone explain to me why, in Emerald, Wooper can learn Dynamicpunch and ice punch when thye don't have arms? Are they using that stubby tail thing to "punch" things?

I imagine it uses its head. Apparently, "Punch" techniques aren't limited to ones fists, considering that Buneary can perform Dizzypunch with its ears. I would imagine this is partly because the Japanese terms for these techniques don't necessarily use their homonym for "Punch." You know, like how there's no gender-specific terms in the Japanese name of Mr. Mime, which is why you can find females of the species.
 
As far as continuity and time things go, all of these games' events COULD be happening at the same time save R/B/Y to G/S/C, as they have characters in common and all. Just as Pokémon have been revealed to appear depending on region, evolutions can also depend on location. Glaceon and Leafeon anyone?

So people who talk about the Lickitung to Lickilicky, etc. evolutions and how they could only occur in later games... maybe there's something in places other than Sinnoh that doesn't allow the Pokémon to evolve? Perhaps a certain instinct triggered by Sinnoh's environment, plus the prerequisites required for the evolution, equals the triggered evolution when the Pokémon gains the experience required?

I'd assume airplanes are somewhere in the Pokémon world, just they've never been put into the games because they'd make things way too easy. Plus, flying Pokémon. Who needs a crash-prone airplane when you have a reliable sturdy Pokémon? Just don't try to fly with your Starly or your Pidgey, folks. XD Though it is a good question, as, as far as I know, there's no flying Pokémon around who can carry more than, say, four people...
 
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lol Well my Togetic can carry me just fine, although I'm sure mirage powers are involved.

On the subject of Conveniently new evolutions...mmm the most logical explanation is that its just a game, of course I wouldn't stand for a simple answer. I'd have to agree with Hedj, evolution is somewhat like adaptation, so that the reason certain POkemon evolve in certain regions is that they adapt to said environment...

And now, a question....

When POkemon die, do they become ghost-type Pokemon like Gastly?
 
Well, there's no evidence but in Red/Blue/Green/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen, the Marowak at the Pokemon Tower is impossible to catch and one girl in Lavender Town says that it's Cubone's mother's spirit. So maybe they turn into Ghosts but not into Ghost Pokemon like Gastly.

Then again, some Pokemon (like Spiritomb) were said to have been made by spirits, so it's fair game and no one knows.
 

baratron

Moderator of Elder Scrolls
Staff member
Moderator
I'm not sure if this is a Seven Greatest Wonders or Wall of Shame post, but I've been wondering why on earth (in D/P) you still need to water berries that are planted in areas where it's perpetually rainy! Where is all that rain going if not into the ground? ???

Also, when you get into a battle while Surfing, how is it possible to send your Surfing Pokemon out to battle? Wouldn't you fall off once it started battling?
 
When you get into a battle while Surfing, how is it possible to send your Surfing Pokemon out to battle? Wouldn't you fall off once it started battling?

I'd like to believe the character I'm playing isn't totally inept, and can swim. So when you send the pokemon you're surfing on into a battle, you'd tread water until the battle's over.

A wonder? Umm.. in the pokedex it says Spoinks die if they don't keep bouncing, but when they faint; they stop bouncing. ???
 
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