Video;

[schachmeister]

[The video opens on a nice little beach towards the sunset hours. A large red Gyarados is laying with his head in the surf, enjoying some good rubs to his crest from Armin, who addresses the camera without taking his eyes off the big lug on the sand.]

I spent a lot of time reading the Pokedex when I first arrived here, but the longer I am here and the more research I do, the more I realise there are a lot of falsehoods in the Pokedex as well. Or at least, a lot of uncorroborated information. Which, unfortunately, seems to lead to some pokemon having a very undeserved reputation.

Take Gyarados, for example.

[He gestures with his arm to the Gyarados laying on the sand, who lets out a low rumble of enjoyment.]

All the Pokedex talks about is how vicious and destructive they are, and how they go on constant rampages.

Now, I won't deny that they can be dangerous and territorial in the wild, but I don't think it is right to portray them as mindless rampaging monsters either. They behave that way for a reason and each has their own personality. They can make perfectly fine pokemon, as long as they are handled by an experienced trainer.

[In fact, Armin got some theories about how their bad reputation really is the result of being handled by a few too many inexperienced trainers.]

I'm not sure how to go about submitting corrections to the Pokedex, but until I figure that out, I wanted to ask: are there any pokemon you care about that you feel have a very undeserved reputation? Or any other false information in the Pokedex that you know about?

[Armin can't research every pokemon as much as he'd like. But perhaps other people can help him correct any misconceptions he might have.]

Comments

voice

[fingersandteeth]

I feel like ghost types in general have a worse reputation than they deserve. All of mine have been very sweet and loving.

[Admittedly, this might be because Steven loves them back just as thoroughly.]

voice

[schachmeister]

I imagine it is because people project their fear of death and dying on them, even though ghost pokemon don't really have anything to do with that. I know there are a lot of myths in the Pokedex about them being the souls of people who died, but really, is there any evidence of that?

Re: voice

[fingersandteeth]

Well, I don't know about all Ghost-types, but Yamask definitely seem to be--or at least believe themselves to be. I've had conversations with some about their previous lives while they were possessing humans.

voice

[schachmeister]

Perhaps some are, or at least, believe themselves to be but--

Take Phantump. They are supposed to be the souls of children who died in the woods. But you can breed them and as far as I know, there is no correlation between people breeding new Phantump and children dying in the woods. You'd expect there to be one, right, if they were really the souls of dead children.

Re: voice

[fingersandteeth]

Mm, good point. Though I wonder if in these cases the original Phantumps were the manifested spirits of children and it's only their children who come from eggs that aren't.

voice

[schachmeister]

I guess that could be true. It would be pretty hard to prove though. And being ghost pokemon, I'm guessing they don't leave much in the way of fossil evidence.

Re: voice

[fingersandteeth]

Probably not. I mean, they might leave the hollow stump/tree, but everything else would be spectral and nigh intangible. And a lot of fossils back home were incomplete anyway, so it's altogether likely that the faces wouldn't always get fossilized, thus making it harder to figure out if the preserved wood is from a Pokemon or a normal tree.