From the earliest days of Red and Blue, Pokemon has massaged a singular wrinkle into its elemental desk within the type of dual-typing. These creatures, carrying traits of a number of sides, can have extra benefits and weaknesses than your backyard selection ‘mon, making them particularly attention-grabbing on the battlefield.
Sometimes, it makes excellent sense. Lanturn is an anglerfish, and due to this fact it’s water and electrical. Litwick, a haunted candle, is invariably ghost and hearth. Bungee Gum possesses the properties of each rubber and gum. So far, so good.
In different cases, nonetheless, it leaves you scratching your noodle a smidgen. Here are only a few of the secondary typings that really feel tacked awkwardly on for causes past our comprehension. If you may justify them to us, then you definately would possibly simply be a Pokemon Professor your self. We will assume you’ve got some type of tree-related surname.
1. Geodude Family (Ground)
Let’s get one thing out of the way in which actual fast — this checklist goes to characteristic a number of gen 1 critters. As a lot as we love these Game Boy classics, they’re mechanically janky and competitively unbalanced. Yes, I’m going to hyperlink that article no person likes once more.
Geodude and its evolutions are a number of the easier Pokemon designs, consisting of a set of stones with various levels of disagreeable faces. Their Rock typing is educational, and but in addition they have the Ground typing chucked in there for some purpose.
It’s not too egregious, till you uncover that Red/Blue/Yellow had completely zero pure Rock-type Pokemon consequently. Its shut family, Onix, Rhyhorn and Rhydon, have been equally Rock/Ground hybrids, although they at the least have tunnelling elements that validate this notion.
How can a factor that could be a real rock be greater than that? It will need to have one thing to do with that crusty disposition, I suppose. He’s gonna put some grime in your eye.
2. Gengar (Poison)
In conserving with the identical theme, Ghosts are one of many rarest Pokemon typings in technology 1. It solely has a scant three members to its title, all of them belonging to the Gastly household.
Again, because of this there could be no pure Ghost-types till Misdreavus reared its spooky head in Johto, and it didn’t appear all that vital by my estimation. Gastly, by its very nature, is gaseous, so it being Poison is smart. To a level, Haunter additionally has some gassy traits that make it Poison-esque.
But Gengar? By now, it has reworked into extra of a shadow-like determine, and amongst virtually 50 Pokedex entries, its poisonous traits have by no means as soon as been addressed. It’s been acknowledged the way it assaults folks within the evening, steals warmth from its environment, and as soon as “stuck just one leg out of a wall” — making it sound extra like my eccentric grandfather than a pocket monster — however nothing in anyway about something remotely toxic.
To be truthful, dual-typing is usually awarded as a part of the evolution course of to indicate how far a lifeform has come, whereas eradicating one would appear counter-intuitive. But when somebody asks you to reel off essentially the most iconic Poison Pokemon in franchise historical past, how lengthy is it going to take earlier than this specter will get a point out?
3. Helioptile/Heliolisk (Normal)
Saying odor ya later to gen 1 for a second, we soar throughout the ocean in the direction of the tropical realm of Alola, the place we simply would possibly encounter these cute little reptilian fellas.
Using their frills, they’re able to generate {an electrical} present, and due to this fact register as shoo-ins for the Electric-type. But then, they’re additionally… Normal? As photo voltaic powered lizards typically are?!
Tangentially, the Normal typing is one thing of a curiosity on this collection. Should a Pokemon not have any type of proclivity in the direction of respiration hearth or conjuring ice or being a literal bug, then positive, it appears regular sufficient. For occasion, I might say that my cat, Lafayette, is regular (and lovely).
But as soon as it has a typing past that? That sounds fairly darned irregular to me, so how are the Helio’s not simply pure Electric sorts? Like a number of of those entries, it absolutely comes all the way down to gameplay components, providing us a singular typing mixture that’s in any other case extraordinary.
By that logic, each time Lafayette drinks water from the faucet I’m going to proclaim that she’s a Normal/Water sort. In response, she’ll in all probability say “meow” or “purr” or “eat the rich”, as per typical.
4. Alolan Exeggutor (Dragon)
We’ll keep in Alola for an additional entry to save lots of on airfare, and pay homage to one of the vital painfully intentional jokes in Pokemon historical past; the big, garish Alolan Exeggutor.
Shedding the Psychic-typing of its mainland cousins, the Alolan kind inexplicably pairs its pure Grass-type with the excellence of being a Dragon. What about it’s dragon-like, I’m wondering, aside from the truth that it makes for an amusing jape? Nothing aside from Moon’s earnest try at justification in its Dex entry, declaring that “as it grew taller and taller, it outgrew its reliance on psychic powers, while within it awakened the power of the sleeping dragon.”
Evidently, elevated top can yield draconic outcomes. If your youngster has a sudden progress spurt, you may shriek at them “you’re a dragon, Morgan McNeil!” (I needed to do some fast guesswork on their attainable title.)
Look, it’s only a little bit of foolish enjoyable, however it signifies that this tree is extra of a Dragon than Charizard, Aerodactyl, and a sure slippery buyer referred to as…
5. Gyarados (Flying)
One of the infuriating issues about Pokemon parts is that a few of them are a bit too literal. If it’s obtained wings on it, it’s in all probability going to be a Flying sort. The solely exception is after they resolve to drag a sneaky-pseudo third typing by giving it the Levitate potential as a substitute — yeah, I see you hovering over there Hydreigon, don’t assume I don’t know what sort of rip-off you’re pulling!
For this purpose, a Pokemon that’s based mostly on Chinese dragons, is a part of the dragon egg group, and has entry to the assault Dragon Rage will not be an precise Dragon in any respect. As a refresher, solely the Dratini household had the honour of being true Dragons within the first technology, leaving different appropriate candidates scrambling for the scraps of the arbitrary Flying-type.
For the aforementioned Charizard and Aerodactyl? Sure, I get it. They’ve obtained wings which can be exhausting to overlook. But for Gyarados, that sucker is nearly completely discovered within the ocean… at the least up till final 12 months’s Legends of Arceus once we lastly obtained to witness it majestically soar by the skies.
It was fairly terrifying, not going to lie, and I sacrificed my Rowlet companion in order that I may safely flee. Nature is merciless.
6. Birds (Normal)
Hey, I’m not fairly over this Normal stuff, so whereas Gyarados’ Flying facet is barely an occasional characteristic that it pulls out at historical events, avian Pokemon have a distinct challenge occurring solely.
Throughout franchise historical past, almost each regional fowl has been a Normal/Flying sort. If we have been making an attempt to ease youngsters into the nuances of typing, they have been maybe led awry by the false notion that they’d have simply been Flying and nothing else.
Oh, what’s that, birds are regular animals? Alright, so are bugs. Is Caterpie a Bug/Normal sort? Horses are regular too, so shouldn’t Ponyta be Fire/Normal? It’s a type of bizarre issues that has simply form of caught, to the purpose the place Flying has grow to be the last word secondary sort.
To this present day, there are nonetheless solely three pure Flying-type Pokemon: Tornadus, Rookidee and Corvisquire. If you’re notably keen on the skies, you may’t area a complete staff, or also have a single absolutely advanced non-legendary on the roster. Bird is, evidently, not the phrase.
7. Kartana (Grass)
Often, the validity of Pokemon typing can solely be accepted in meme kind, corresponding to that man who angrily shouts “I guess” whereas throwing his palms into the air.
Case in level is the Ultra Beast Kartana. Known because the Drawn Sword Pokemon, this curious creation resembles an origami superhero. True to its delineation, it’s a Steel-type, however its main typing is in precise truth Grass.
If you need to take into account issues in a roundabout means, paper is made out of bushes, and bushes go hand in hand with grass. In this sense, Kartana is technically a useless tree, having cruelly been chopped down, processed and packaged as a paper product. Once you apply that logic, you may virtually really feel your self nodding with satisfaction.
…But wait, if it’s certainly a useless tree, then shouldn’t it’s a Ghost as effectively? Aaaah, dammit! We have been so shut.
8. Drampa (Normal)
I promise that is the final time I’m going to harp on about this particular shoehorned typing. After all, they’re simply regular males. …They’re simply harmless males!
Up so far, when glancing on the Pokemon who’ve been distinguished as Normal, you may at the least glean a modicum of reasonability. Just a little man like Pidgey? Yeah, that’s Normal. A pleasant younger lizard corresponding to Helioptile? Okay, that’s Normal-ish. A Pokemon that may very well be greatest described because the bootleg Falkor motion determine your kindly aunt purchased from the $2 retailer? This will not be Normal, folks.
In each means, form and kind, Drampa seeks to undermine all that we imagine to be true. Despite the truth that it has been seen flying within the anime, it’s neither a Flying-type, nor has entry to Levitate. Even its Pokedex entries don’t alleviate the problem, claiming that it “appears in towns and plays with the children”, or that “if it is angered, it completely destroys its surroundings with its intense breath.”
It appears to embody the phrase “strange” to a tee, and I suggest that when gen 10 rolls round, Drampa be repurposed into the world’s first triple-typing: Dragon/Normal/But Really Not Normal.
9. Stufful (Fighting)
Tired of me utilizing the Normal sort as a punching bag? Well then, let’s observe a Pokemon whose typing would make it effectively suited to go a number of rounds with an precise punching bag.
Stufful, a bear cub that has allusions towards being a stuffed animal, is called the Flailing Pokemon. What that entails, precisely, is that in the event you attempt to hug it and even contact it with out its specific written consent, it is going to go on a mood tantrum for the ages, sending close by civilians reeling with its unrestrained blows.
For this purpose, it’s apparently worthy of being a fighter, inserting it alongside such luminaries as Machamp, who has 4 arms and 4 thousand muscle mass, or Hariyama, a distinguished sumo wrestler who I swear is definitely saying its title at any time when I summon it to the battlefield.
I can solely think about that Kubfu, whose diligence and dedication have led to it being a Fighting-type prodigy, could be downright offended after they see Stufful flailing about and claiming that they’re lower from the identical material. Get misplaced with that noise, Winnie the Pooh.
10. Nearly Every Gen 1 Grass-Type (Poison)
Pop quiz, rookie! What is the one pure Grass-type Pokemon within the first technology of video games?
Did you say Bulbasaur, the emblematic mascot of Grass-types? Or did you say Bellsprout, the plant-like monstrosity? Maybe you mentioned Oddish, who is nearly solely a weed? Perhaps you mentioned Charmander, since you hate pop quizzes and simply need to see the world burn?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong, and a jerk.
These Pokemon are all Poison sorts, as effectively. In Bulbasaur’s case, you may give it a move, as its hybrid fauna resembles some form of toad, and positive, Oddish’s eventual vacation spot, Vileplume, is topped off with a poisonous rafflesia. But for one in all Pokemon’s most vital sorts, one of many three choices your journey begins with, to solely have a lone purebred consultant?
It simply looks like an odd selection, particularly in relation to us courtesy of the lower than inspiring Tangela. Thanks for waving that grassy flag, I suppose. You appear to be spaghetti, and sometime Imma eat you.
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