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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
The ability to have both bikes is strictly post-Delta Episode though, because the third NPC is located at the Battle Resort.
In that regard, it’s sort of like Koraidon / Miraidon’s flight power, or the perma-charged Tera Orb in SV — a final convenience afforded to you only after it no longer impacts the game design in a significant way.
Vileplume and Bellossom are a weird case in that they used to have identical base stats just with Special Attack and Special Defense swapped, and then Gen 6 broke the symmetry by boosting Vileplume's Special Attack and Bellossom's Physical Defense.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Every so often I remember that the Pokemon Adventures manga made Team Rocket's name an acronym for Raid On the City, Knock Out, Evil Tusks and I cringe so hard I run the risk of breaking a rib
I've seen some awkwardly forced acronyms used but this one sounded so stupid and ridiculous (even by PokeSpe standards) I had to look it up myself. Never before did I feel so disappointed to find out something being true
The perils of having to create a backronym out of a word that was never intended to be an acronym that has to vaguely match an acronym of that same word in another language. It will always be awful.
Rob, Oppress, Chase, Kill, Extort, Terrify!
I mean, it's still bad and cringe, but at least it makes some sense. And since it's just a list of crimes/bad actions, you could do something like this in every language and get roughly the same result, even if individual crimes vary wildly. There's no excuse for the canon one to be so bad.
Pretty much. I guess they realized it and didn't do one for Team Magma/Aqua/Galactic/etc...
You know Evil Tusks could carry a new connotation nowadays…
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
...is that what you call them?
No, I meant to make a joke based on Great Tusk. Sorry for the confusion.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Ah, it's just my filthy mind at work.
We didn't even get the weird unseen ultra beast giovanni was using so we'd probably not even see the things they hypothetically might use
Bit surprised Masters hasn't done anything with that little detail, even just a Giovanni + A UB (Guzzlord, probably?) alt.
This may be an old topic but I got reminded of it: Arven asking himself the big unanswered question regarding Paradoxes, how they were around 200 years ago in the expedition despite no time machine existing back then. While playing I didn't mind it, figuring they were just setting up to resolve it in the DLC. But...they didn't. (I do think it was planned given Heath was in datamines, the scene with Terapagos in the lake would have resolved a lot if it was with him rather than with the Professor) And for me, acknowledging the issue doesn't give it a pass.
It's extra annoying given how one of the trailers showcases the photos of the expedition but we never got anything out of it. The marketing around The Indigo Disk as a whole was rather strange given how much it showcased the starters despite them not being avaliable at first.
With how good the story was in the SV base game, I have to wonder what happened in the DLCs (the Kitami stuff was nice, and I love Kieran as a rival, but that shouldn't be the focus given the name is literally Terapagos)
It's extra annoying given how one of the trailers showcases the photos of the expedition but we never got anything out of it. The marketing around The Indigo Disk as a whole was rather strange given how much it showcased the starters despite them not being avaliable at first.
With how good the story was in the SV base game, I have to wonder what happened in the DLCs (the Kitami stuff was nice, and I love Kieran as a rival, but that shouldn't be the focus given the name is literally Terapagos)
I am a 100% believer in the theory that Terapagos/Tera basically just makes ideas come true, and that they were never real Pokemon. And Terastilization is the Pokemon wishing it could be another type, and that becoming a reality.
Using the Scarlet/Violet book there basically just kept feeding the ideas from the book into the chamber pretty much.
That being said, the DLC didn't really do much with this idea... I still think it's true and IMO the base game gives enough info for it to be true, but the fact that they didn't touch it is weird
That would explain the 570 / 590 BST of the Paradox Pokémon and the existence of the Past Beast Paradoxes and Future Sword Paradoxes; the former is explained by Terapagos / Tera being a powerful source of imagination, thus even something based off Jigglypuff and Delibird ends up being powerful threats. While Terapagos is very unlikely to meet the Beast Trio and the Sword of Justice, the Expedition Team may ended up imagined them that brings Terastalization (accidentally) creating monstrous or robotic version of the Legendary Pokémon. It was at the time Keldeo wasn’t recruited to the Swords of Justice yet, hence Keldeo not having a Future counterpart. (In official Pokémon medias anyways!)
Conveniently, Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant are based off Mega Salamence for R.M., and Mega Gardevoir and Mega Gallade for I.V. While Mega Gardevoir is firstly discovered in Kalos, the Gardevoirite is also found in Hoenn, while the Salamencite and Galladite were firstly discovered in Hoenn, making me think the expedition team went to Kalos and Hoenn before going to Paldea’s Area Zero. Helped by the fact that Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant also subtly foreshadowed Legends: Z-A as that one is most likely give spotlight back to Mega Evolution.
Well, we can infer that there weren’t any Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero when the Professor began studying there, because otherwise there would be no need to build the time machine. The Pokemon that they wanted to see would already be there.
In other words, Paradox Pokémon only inhabit Area Zero at two points in history — after the construction of the time machine which brings them over from their native timeline, and 200 years ago, during the expedition. During the 200-year interim between those points, there are no Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero.
So really the question is, what caused those Paradox Pokémon to appear to the Expedition Team back then? And to that, I think the answer is inevitably “Terapagos,” since it has the power to bridge different points in time. That is to say, while the Expedition Team were traveling through Area Zero, Terapagos was bridging Area Zero in their time period with Area Zero in the future, after the time machine was built and Paradox Pokémon were introduced, making it possible for Heath’s team to see the various Paradox Pokémon that will eventually live there.
Thus you have a bootstrap paradox — the Paradox Pokémon are only temporarily present in Area Zero in Heath’s time because the Professor built a time machine to bring the kinds of Pokémon they saw in the book over to Area Zero. The Professor creates the future that Heath’s team catches a glimpse of.
I think it’s also worth noting that in Heath’s time, Terapagos clearly wasn’t in hibernation for whatever reason — Heath encountered it in its Stellar Form. I would guess that in that form, its time-bridging powers might be more potent or wide-ranging.
I don't agree that Terapagos has time travel. I don't really agree that the Paradox Pokemon have time travel elements, in general. I think it's more likely that the Expedition team had ideas of grand creatures that Terapagos turned into a reality, which were then recorded. IMO this is supported by the fact that one of the Pokemon brought was Heath's Cyclizar, which would possibly add the idea of altered versions of them.
Later, the Professor brings the book down and feeds it to the device, which then creates more of them through the book idea.
In my opinion the idea of ancient and future Pokemon in general just doesn't really make sense, even for Pokemon, in this way at least. Especially the Future Pokemon. Despite them being based on a cool concept (the idea of Pokemon going extinct, thus people make fake versions of them) it also kinda makes no sense. For instance, Paradox Suicune, Entei and Raikou don't make sense for obvious reasons - The normal versions of them have only existed for a few hundred years.
While you could argue that maybe Ho-Oh just made new Pokemon within the species or something, these are the first sightings of them. It can possibly be explained but I still believe that they aren't actually real Pokemon that existed in the past.
It'd even explain why the future Pokemon are so... similar. Just iron, lights and the idea of mechanical creatures (like Iron Bundle being a "robot"). Iron Treads is explained as being from aliens in the magazine, for instance.
I can't be sure because I'm not Game Freak, but I really do not think time travel is in this story. Terapagos is not shown to have any actual time warping powers when we actually see it, and Terastilization as a mechanic does not really have anything in common with it either.
Eternatus has some as an example- it's implied that the Dynamax Dens we enter use space warping so that they are much bigger on the inside than the outside, and that Dynamaxing itself with size is primarily cosmetic. And during the Eternatus fight, we see it showing images of the journey with things seemingly warping.
Anywho, I have to get my final done... Have a good one.
I mean the obvious answer to this -if we want to entertain the idea- is these are just the ancestors of the modern versions, from an arbitrary thousands of years in the past. We never know what the pre-rebirth ones look like, so they can easily be some in-between of the dino trio and the regal rebirthed trio.
Of course then the meeting with the Professor side steps all of this anyway.
Pokemon from the distant past/future of other timelines entirely and not necessarily are own.
The meeting at the Crystal Pool is definitely not just something whisked out of nothing, we know from the underdepths notes that this meeting happened and it's likely what happened with Heath as well. That's definitely time warping going on.
Like I do think that there's an element of wish fulfillment in play, there's lots of oddities going on, and I also don't think the Paradoxes are what is claimed to be (we literally have no actual information on them beyond what the Professor provides, all the tabloids are just that . Tabloids that are just sensationalizing on a pop fiction topic), but Terapagos (& the crystals) does seem to have such reality bending properties that the idea of time(/cross-universe) travel bringing these things in/out being possible isn't out of the question either in my book.
Honestly part of me wonders if the cross-universe thing was tacked on just to help give the idea these things could have possibly existed somehow more weight and to keep the whole thing more vague. It's clear they want very little about Area Zero to be concretely answered, for better or worse.
Paradoxes being from another timeline/universe easily solve the Paradox beast issue as well. I think people have been too much in denial about them not being time travelled-while I very much prefer the desire theory to what we got, the lake scene and the Professor's diary talking about how a child gave them the white book are pretty unambiguous about time travel being involved in some way. Does it create more questions? Indeed, but so does Terapagos itself being the last one of a kind and creating Terastal (how? why only one managed to do it? what does have to do with time travel?), imbuing the crystals with enough whatever it is it works in Kitakami just because of the Pool alone, and in the BB academy with Paldea land and Pool water. We just have to accept there is a future where Pokemon are build mechanically somehow and a past where there are versions of the Beasts.
The Kirakami pool is also said to allow people to see deceased dear ones, which also supports time travel.
There is probably some kind of desire relation as the Raidons knew the Professors, but it's crystal clear (no pun intended) that the meeting at the lake created another kind of paradox. Which while fun on itself, really doesn't solve any of the questions behind the Scarlet/Violet Book creation.
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Unless GF’s writers are playing 18-dimensional KerPlunk, the verbiage that’s exchanged in the Crystal Pool scene is pretty blatantly discussing time travel:
“Have I somehow broken through the boundaries of space-time?”
“From the clues you’ve let slip, I suppose I would have to conclude… From my perspective, this must be the future…?”
“I do…have a family. A son. He is probably at home right now… Well, no, I suppose ‘right now’ could be inaccurate. Whenever and wherever he is, I imagine he must be…quite lonely.”
Plus just the general fact that the Professor, during that scene, has explicitly been struggling to make a breakthrough in their research, which is resolved by you giving them the White Book, which their journal notes in the Underdepths mention you doing.
Then there’s the emotional throughline with Koraidon / Miraidon, who are clearly happy to see the Professor again, and sad when they depart. It was said that the Crystal Pool allows you to see people who have passed on, and that turns out to be sort of true, in a time travel-based way: Koraidon / Miraidon is afforded one last moment when the Professor who died protecting them.
Then it strikes me as an odd choice to call them Paradox Pokémon, and to correlate them with the distant past / future and a device called a time machine. Those trappings are what they’re always going to be associated with by the audience.
See, the thing is, I sort of get this, because I believed in the Imagination Theory for a long time. But I did so more because that theory originated from Khu, who at the time, had leaker cred. When he ended up getting a bunch of predictions about the Indigo Disk wrong, and the only further development on the origin of Paradox Pokémon provided in ID was that they come from alternate timelines, I discarded all of my pre-colored assumptions and sort of reanalyzed the story, taking into account only what it actually says about everything.
And the conclusion I arrived at was, well, sort of what I said up above — that I have a very hard time believing GF would bandy around ideas like a time machine, past and future Pokémon, other timelines, scenes with all the trappings of a bootstrap paradox, the very word “paradox,” dragon mascots whose names contain the words for “past” and “future,” and version-exclusive professors wearing cavewoman garb and a Tron suit, only to secretly intend for players to decipher that there’s really no time travel going on at all, and that it’s actually all just wish-granting, which not one single character in the story ever even considers could be the case.
The other thing is - I would argue, anyway - that the Imagination Theory is even more vague in some ways. Like, okay, Terapagos manifested the visions of strange Pokémon in the minds of Heath’s team. But why were they picturing these sorts of Pokémon? Why, in one game, do they imagine primordial-looking creatures, while in the other, they think of futuristic ones? Why is the sketch of the Beast / Sword hybrid not manifested directly, but rather as three separate creatures?
If it’s a bootstrap paradox, then the difference is accounted for by the involvement of a different professor. Sada, personally, is fascinated by primordial aesthetics and ideas, and Turo by futuristic aesthetics and ideas. Whichever professor is the prominent one in the game is determined by the contents of the book that was published, which is determined by the creatures that Heath’s team saw, which is determined by the creatures brought over by the time machine, which is determined by the professor who built the time machine. It’s a self-perpetuating loop.
Nowhere was it said that the future Paradox Pokémon are “fake” versions built by people. We don’t know why they are the way that they are — the only details given about them are from a silly tabloid; the Pokémon equivalent of Weekly World News.
If they’re just from some alternate timeline, which is the closest we get to an actual stated backstory for them, then it doesn’t really matter, because that timeline could and probably does have a totally different history from the main timeline.
I don’t believe that Wake, Fire, and Bolt existed in the past of the main timeline either… but again, an alternate timeline from which they were imported wouldn’t be constrained by the same history.
Them being from an alternate timeline, and only inhabiting a future after the Professor’s time machine is built (a future which is merely being glimpsed by the research team via Terapagos), would also explain how the sketch artist could draw a mashup of Raikou, Entei, and Suicune 50 years before they were created by Ho-Oh — the artist actually saw Wake, Fire, and Bolt, and combined their traits into a sketch of a purely theoretical creature.
I don’t think the effects of Terapagos’s influence all need to be linked to one underlying concept. Its existence causes all kinds of things to happen. Time travel, Terastallization, the growth of Herba Mystica, the amplification of machine capabilities, the formation of Tera Raid dens, some sort of effect on Glimmet and Glimmora… I think Terastal energy is just a very flexible energy source that can do a lot of things.
This discussion has me missing a hypothetical ORAS-style Unova remake that works in gen 9 lore to an existing region. The Entralink just works too well as a parallel to Area Zero. (though the original state of connecting to both an explicitly named Dream World and the alternate timelines of other player's games doesn't resolve the question at hand, I suppose).
For the record, regardless of alternate timelines or bootstrapping this is likely the intent anyway. Walking Wake (S) & Iron Boulder (V) mention the book directly, and it's not just a case of the strange sketch since it's where the names came from.
So elsewhere in the book are presumably 3 other entries for those paradoxes, just like how all the paradoxes have entries we just don't get to read them.
I get they want to leave things open for if they introduce more paradoxes in the future but man I wish we could read the whole book. I wish there were more from the uncesnored draft Briar has too, for that matter. Or an answer to why it was censored to begin with.
I don't agree with all of your conclusions, but you make a number of fair rebuttals.
Admittedly, I was not too invested in the DLCs so I think I just didn't keep up to date with the lore that heavily. I didn't know about Khu's theory because I don't like to follow leaks (After Sun and Moon I felt that knowing a lot about a Pokemon game hinders my enjoyment), I think it was a forum somewhere where I read about it prior to the DLCs.
The one thing I will say I don't agree with is that there are absolutely signs of the future Pokemon being created rather than just natural evolution. Not all of them, but some of them. That is not a rebuttal to your point, but it paints a pretty creepy picture of the future of at least some timeline.