So theres 18 POKéMON types ( the original 15 + Dark, Steel and Fairy introduced in later generations ) and lately it occurred to me that they dont really sense in some ways, specifically in the naming of some of the types. Instead of shrugging that off and moving on with more important things, I decided that I should definitely make a thread about it instead. You know, because this is the best thing I can do with my time and why not have some fun. .w. Its also kind of sort of relevant with the reveal of the typing of the two new Sun / Moon legendary POKéMON and the revelation that the Sun Legendary is weak to Fire ( haha, what? ) and the Moon Legendary is weak to Dark and Ghost ( both things related to the night ). Ill start with some types that make sense and move forward from that.
DISCLAIMER : Before we actually get properly started, I want to make clear Im talking mostly about the names and flavour of the types, not their actual gameplay implications. Also, please dont take this too seriously. >w>
Classical Elements : Fire / Water / Ground
Hey, look at that, thats three of the classical elements! The classical elements are a decent way to start off your typing. Its kind of a miss that Earth was renamed to Ground, but Ill let it slip. So where is Air / Wind? Its not there? What about the fifth element, referred to as Aether or Void? Its also not here, huh You could perhaps argue that other types represent parts of those missing elements, but why were those elements split up and these not?
Maybe they based it on the Chinese elements ( Wu Xing ), which do not include Air / Wind or Aether / Void. The Chinese elements are as follows; Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. Now this looks like something we can match up with some POKéMON types; we have Fire, Water, Ground ( Earth ), Steel ( a Metal ) and Grass ( sorta kinda Wood ). But the Steel type was not introduced until the second generation of POKéMON and the weaknesses / strengths of these types for / against each other do not match up with the concept of cycles related to the Chinese elements. Despite that, Ill say elements are still a decent concept to base types on, so lets see what other types we could make sense of here.
Fire and Water are nice and simple enough. Ice is a form of water and can also jump in. Ground is in too, but should probably be renamed to Earth. Rock can get in on the action at this point too through similar reasoning as for Ice. Grass could fit in, but grass refers to a family of plants and is thus weirdly specific. Lets go with Wu Xing here and rename it Wood. Adhering to Wu Xing also lets us bring in Steel, though as with Grass, it should be renamed as steel refers to a specific type of metal. Steel is now Metal. I have no specific problems with Poison, so lets invite Poison too. Dark has always been kind of iffy to me, as darkness refers to the absence of something rather than the presence of something and I feel the way it is meant to represent evilness is silly, but an argument could be made for including it here so lets just get it in too.
So now we have Fire, Water, Ice, Earth (Ground), Rock, Wood (Grass), Metal (Steel), Poison and Dark. Aside from a few renames, we still have a decent basis here for a typing system. Youll note that all the types we worked with so far are nouns. Why is that relevant you ask? Well
For some reason four of the existing types are adjectives instead of nouns, indicating specific abilities of the POKéMON in question instead of ( related ) elements. Why? Who knows! They didnt do Wet instead of Water or Burning instead of Fire. Lets tackle them one by one;
Fighting : Why is this a type on its own? All POKéMON fight, no? Now obviously this type refers more to martial arts over just regular fighting, which is fine, but we should still find a way to get it to fit in with the nouns. Lets rename it Combat or Strength. Nice and noun-ey while still reflecting the nature of the type. Strength also being a move shouldnt be a problem as Psychic is also currently a move ( though well get to that in just a bit ).
Flying : So this would presumably refer to the POKéMONs ability to fly, wouldnt it? Well No. Theres around 20 Flying type POKéMON that cannot learn the move Fly. These include Gyarados and Scyther. Then theres also Doduo and Dodrio; the pair of POKéMON who are based on a flightless bird, yet are Flying type and can learn Fly ( cue the Awkward Zombie comic ). Yanmega is a Flying type POKéMON that can easily transport a human in flight according to its Pokédex entry, yet it cannot learn Fly. Lets get this type renamed to get around most of this. Wind and Air are nice nouns and would fit with the elements thing we have going, so lets pick one of those and keep going.
Electric : Electric would be ok-ish, but it just doesnt feel like it fits with the rest. They probably wanted to go for Electricity, but decided against it for being too long. Aside from that, electricity feels more artificial than other types. We can do a bit better here, and the POKéMON-people even know it themselves; remember the prophecy about to the legendary bird trio from the movie POKéMON 2000? It certainly didnt go Fire, Ice and Electricity, I can tell you that! Lets rename this to Lightning to have it feel more nature-ey and fall in line with the nouns.
Psychic : Now theres one more adjective to get rid of. Psychic doesnt really do anything especially wrong in terms of naming aside from being an adjective and being a fairly specific ability for so many POKéMON to have, so let me just cut to the chase and rename it Mind. Mind is a bit broader and we can still have that brains vs. brawn, mind vs. body thing between Mind and Strength.
There. Were thirteen types in so far and we now have all-nouns and everything relates to elements or nature in some way ( aside from the iffy Combat / Strength and the debateable Mind, but were better off than we were ). We can do this, so lets cont-
-inue !? So now we have types referring to the species of a POKéMON? Wheres the logic in this? Why are Bug and Dragon types but not Dog or Cat? I dont really know how to get these in line with the others seems fitting were stuck at thirteen, the unlucky number. Theres no real way to incorporate these fully into the element system, but with a bit of creativity we can figure this out.
Dragon and Bug are cool in the way that they present two opposite power levels; the weak tiny common bugs and the strong cool rare dragons! I like that enough to just keep that as is, but Ghost and especially Fairy are kinda weird. The term ghost has plenty of negative connotations and is connected to the idea of people dying ( oh, hi there Yamask ). Perhaps Spirit would be more neutral? Fairy is just kinda there. I think there were more than a few people who expected the new type to be Light to balance out Dark, and Id also prefer that over Fairy. You could even combine it with Spirit to indicate the nature of the spirit ( Light Spirit and Dark Spirit ) or with an element to represent elemental spirits, but thats opening a whole other can of worms.
So to recap: I feel some of the types have odd names and when looking at all the types together, they seem somewhat inconsistent. Some types are weirdly specific ( Grass / Steel ), some types fall in the classic elements category ( Water / Fire / Ground ), others may or may not indicate abilities of the POKéMON ( Psychic / Flying ) and then theres also typing more concerned with the species of the POKéMON ( Dragon / Bug ). The one type I havent mentioned up to this point is Normal. Normal is ok I guess. I get the need for a neutral type. Its just that the rest of the types are not entirely consistent with one another.
Am I the only one who feels like this? Is there some grand design behind it all that I am missing? Is it some translation thing? Also, more importantly; am I a crazy person for caring about this so much? Should I step away from my 3DS?
DISCLAIMER : Before we actually get properly started, I want to make clear Im talking mostly about the names and flavour of the types, not their actual gameplay implications. Also, please dont take this too seriously. >w>
Classical Elements : Fire / Water / Ground
Hey, look at that, thats three of the classical elements! The classical elements are a decent way to start off your typing. Its kind of a miss that Earth was renamed to Ground, but Ill let it slip. So where is Air / Wind? Its not there? What about the fifth element, referred to as Aether or Void? Its also not here, huh You could perhaps argue that other types represent parts of those missing elements, but why were those elements split up and these not?
Maybe they based it on the Chinese elements ( Wu Xing ), which do not include Air / Wind or Aether / Void. The Chinese elements are as follows; Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. Now this looks like something we can match up with some POKéMON types; we have Fire, Water, Ground ( Earth ), Steel ( a Metal ) and Grass ( sorta kinda Wood ). But the Steel type was not introduced until the second generation of POKéMON and the weaknesses / strengths of these types for / against each other do not match up with the concept of cycles related to the Chinese elements. Despite that, Ill say elements are still a decent concept to base types on, so lets see what other types we could make sense of here.
Fire and Water are nice and simple enough. Ice is a form of water and can also jump in. Ground is in too, but should probably be renamed to Earth. Rock can get in on the action at this point too through similar reasoning as for Ice. Grass could fit in, but grass refers to a family of plants and is thus weirdly specific. Lets go with Wu Xing here and rename it Wood. Adhering to Wu Xing also lets us bring in Steel, though as with Grass, it should be renamed as steel refers to a specific type of metal. Steel is now Metal. I have no specific problems with Poison, so lets invite Poison too. Dark has always been kind of iffy to me, as darkness refers to the absence of something rather than the presence of something and I feel the way it is meant to represent evilness is silly, but an argument could be made for including it here so lets just get it in too.
So now we have Fire, Water, Ice, Earth (Ground), Rock, Wood (Grass), Metal (Steel), Poison and Dark. Aside from a few renames, we still have a decent basis here for a typing system. Youll note that all the types we worked with so far are nouns. Why is that relevant you ask? Well
The Adjectives : Fighting / Flying / Psychic / Electric
For some reason four of the existing types are adjectives instead of nouns, indicating specific abilities of the POKéMON in question instead of ( related ) elements. Why? Who knows! They didnt do Wet instead of Water or Burning instead of Fire. Lets tackle them one by one;
Fighting : Why is this a type on its own? All POKéMON fight, no? Now obviously this type refers more to martial arts over just regular fighting, which is fine, but we should still find a way to get it to fit in with the nouns. Lets rename it Combat or Strength. Nice and noun-ey while still reflecting the nature of the type. Strength also being a move shouldnt be a problem as Psychic is also currently a move ( though well get to that in just a bit ).
Flying : So this would presumably refer to the POKéMONs ability to fly, wouldnt it? Well No. Theres around 20 Flying type POKéMON that cannot learn the move Fly. These include Gyarados and Scyther. Then theres also Doduo and Dodrio; the pair of POKéMON who are based on a flightless bird, yet are Flying type and can learn Fly ( cue the Awkward Zombie comic ). Yanmega is a Flying type POKéMON that can easily transport a human in flight according to its Pokédex entry, yet it cannot learn Fly. Lets get this type renamed to get around most of this. Wind and Air are nice nouns and would fit with the elements thing we have going, so lets pick one of those and keep going.
Electric : Electric would be ok-ish, but it just doesnt feel like it fits with the rest. They probably wanted to go for Electricity, but decided against it for being too long. Aside from that, electricity feels more artificial than other types. We can do a bit better here, and the POKéMON-people even know it themselves; remember the prophecy about to the legendary bird trio from the movie POKéMON 2000? It certainly didnt go Fire, Ice and Electricity, I can tell you that! Lets rename this to Lightning to have it feel more nature-ey and fall in line with the nouns.
Psychic : Now theres one more adjective to get rid of. Psychic doesnt really do anything especially wrong in terms of naming aside from being an adjective and being a fairly specific ability for so many POKéMON to have, so let me just cut to the chase and rename it Mind. Mind is a bit broader and we can still have that brains vs. brawn, mind vs. body thing between Mind and Strength.
There. Were thirteen types in so far and we now have all-nouns and everything relates to elements or nature in some way ( aside from the iffy Combat / Strength and the debateable Mind, but were better off than we were ). We can do this, so lets cont-
The Species : Bug / Dragon / Fairy / Ghost
-inue !? So now we have types referring to the species of a POKéMON? Wheres the logic in this? Why are Bug and Dragon types but not Dog or Cat? I dont really know how to get these in line with the others seems fitting were stuck at thirteen, the unlucky number. Theres no real way to incorporate these fully into the element system, but with a bit of creativity we can figure this out.
Dragon and Bug are cool in the way that they present two opposite power levels; the weak tiny common bugs and the strong cool rare dragons! I like that enough to just keep that as is, but Ghost and especially Fairy are kinda weird. The term ghost has plenty of negative connotations and is connected to the idea of people dying ( oh, hi there Yamask ). Perhaps Spirit would be more neutral? Fairy is just kinda there. I think there were more than a few people who expected the new type to be Light to balance out Dark, and Id also prefer that over Fairy. You could even combine it with Spirit to indicate the nature of the spirit ( Light Spirit and Dark Spirit ) or with an element to represent elemental spirits, but thats opening a whole other can of worms.
So to recap: I feel some of the types have odd names and when looking at all the types together, they seem somewhat inconsistent. Some types are weirdly specific ( Grass / Steel ), some types fall in the classic elements category ( Water / Fire / Ground ), others may or may not indicate abilities of the POKéMON ( Psychic / Flying ) and then theres also typing more concerned with the species of the POKéMON ( Dragon / Bug ). The one type I havent mentioned up to this point is Normal. Normal is ok I guess. I get the need for a neutral type. Its just that the rest of the types are not entirely consistent with one another.
Am I the only one who feels like this? Is there some grand design behind it all that I am missing? Is it some translation thing? Also, more importantly; am I a crazy person for caring about this so much? Should I step away from my 3DS?
