#074 - Geodude
Rock/Ground
Geodude is another Link Evolution family, and like Abra and Machop he's been a key part of the Pokemon Experience for basically every game excluding Black and White. Despite this, I feel Geodude's design and style is a bit different from Abra, Machop, and the final Gen I Link Evolution Gastly, due to being more of a feral creature compared to the others who are more "humanoid" and depicted as being a bit unusual and special. Geodude is our first Pokemon based on a non-living object, although since a rock is a natural part of nature and not a human creation, it's not as bothersome for folks as some of the other material-based Pokemon are. Despite being a rock, it has traits of a living creature including a heart, the need to eat, the ability to reproduce, and a personality, so in Pokemon terms it basically is an animal. Pretty much every material-based Pokemon, even the ones based on manmade objects, have animal-like traits, so the complaint that they're "objects" is sort of misleading since they are treated as animals, just not ones that exist in our world. Geodude is also our first Rock-type Pokemon, and also part-Ground---in fact, outside of the Fossil Pokemon, who the player wouldn't encounter frequently due to their rarity, all the Rock-type Pokemon in Generation I are also part Ground-type, which has lead to quite a few people misunderstanding the individual Type matchups of the Rock-type. I know that there are plenty of folks who due to the show stressing their immunity to Pikachu's Electric attacks, think that Rock-type Pokemon such as Geodude and Onix are immune to Electric-type attacks because of their Rock-type rather than it being only because they're part-Ground. Rock-type Pokemon in general haven't received the best luck from Game Freak as despite having high-defense as you'd expect, they're quite brittle, and have a lot of common weaknesses meaning they're go down fast. The buff that Sturdy, an ability that many Rock-type Pokemon have, in Gen V helped matters though.
Geodude has played an important role in Pokemon as being a common Pokemon among the initial Rock-type Gym Leaders such as Brock, Roxanne, and Roark, and thus is a Pokemon that many players will be familiar with due to how often it appears. Despite being used by Gym Leaders frequently, Geodude never struck me as a Pokemon that most players actually use during their adventure, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that usually by the time you come across Wild Geodude, you've already probably easily defeated the Gym Leader's Geodude, and thus having defeated one that might give you the impression they're weak or expendable Pokemon not worth using. I don't think I've ever touched a member of the Geodude line personally---it just seems like their role is best served as an NPC Pokemon, and not a member of my in-game party. That being said, Geodude's simplistic design and likable personality I think has made it an endearing Pokemon, and I don't feel it's particularly hated either, just a Pokemon that's always sort of been "there".
Despite having arms, Geodude are constantly mistaken for normal rocks in the Pokemon World, presumably they fold their arms up when in disguise. Hiking can be a dangerous hobby in the Pokemon World, though, because if you accidentally step on a Geodude who isn't in a deep sleep, it'll pop up and attack you by swinging its rock-hard arms at you. In later Generations, this was incorporated into the actual game through the field-move Rock Smash which, when used on breakable rocks, would often result in a fight with a Wild Geodude---but what would happen if you accidentally smashed Geodude to bits? Do construction workers have to scout out mountains and other rocky terrain they dig at first to make sure they're not accidentally destroying Geodude with drills and dynamite? Also, one PokeDex claims folks throw Geodude at one another during snowball fights...pretty dangerous, huh?
How does Geodude move? Well, according to the PokeDex, and as you'd probably guess by looking at it, Geodude has to crawl along the ground with its arms, or roll down slopes in order to travel. Despite this, the 3D games often show it levitating in mid-air, as does the show, although the show is particularly inconsistent about this, as sometimes Geodude is able to freely float around as it pleases, while at other times it seems bound to the ground and has to hop along instead. I don't blame the show for going with the floating appearance, though, as I imagine having to animate Geodude slowly crawling along the ground would be difficult, and having him float is far easier and cheaper to do. Plus, as a kid, Geodude floating never particularly bothered me or seemed out of place, since in Generation I every sprite basically looked as if it was floating in the middle of nothing.
In the show, Geodude was most famously owned by Brock, and stuck with him throughout Kanto and Johto---despite all this, poor Geodude never did much, nor did it ever evolve. I sort of wish the writers would've at least let it evolve into Graveler just to let it do something. Its only real moments were jobbing in the P1 Grand Prix (which is weird since it was a Fighting-type tournament), and later in an Advanced Generation episode, took down Team Rocket rather skillfully under the control of Brock's brother Forrest who now technically owns it in Brock's place as the new Pewter City Gym Leader. Outside of Brock's, we've seen plenty of Geodude due to their use by the various Rock-type Gym Leaders, but I don't think the Pokemon has really gotten a starring role because it's always playing second-fiddle to bigger Rock-type Pokemon like Onix and Nosepass.
#075 - Graveler
Rock/Ground
Graveler is the evolution of Geodude, and also plays a somewhat important role in the Pokemon Experience as he typically appears in the end game dungeons, such as Victory Road---so there's kind of a "round trip" to the journey in many of the Pokemon games, where you begin taking down a Geodude in the Rock-type Gym, and end up facing down its evolution as you make your way to the Elite Four. Graveler is actually a pretty good Pokemon to populate Victory Road with, as they have multiple weaknesses and thus are great Pokemon to grind with to level up in order to be ready for the Elite Four. However, this grew a bit more complicated in Gen VI, where the Graveler in Victory Road now had Sturdy, meaning they'd take two hits instead of one, and might end up Self-Destructing on you. There's horror stories about Trainers running into a Shiny Graveler only for it to Self-Destruct right before their very eyes...
Visually, Graveler is a logical evolution of Geodude, a larger rock-monster, and as I said before I enjoy the middle-forms of the Link Evolutions quite a bit. The extra arms though bug me a bit---they don't look as awkward as Machamp's, but I don't get their purpose. Graveler is said to mainly get around by rolling, thus it doesn't seem like he'd need four-arms in order to better get around or anything. Furthermore, while the lower arms were shown to be pretty limber in earlier appearances, Graveler nowadays is almost always shown with the lower arms resting on his chest and sometimes it seems like they're just embedded into his body, so it seems Game Freak decided to sort of diminish this aspect of Graveler's design, and they ultimately remove it completely upon evolution. Graveler is one of those Pokemon whose look changes in little ways throughout the franchise---notice in the old Sugimori Art his claws were brown, but now they're the same color as the rest of his arms. Still, regardless of the little changes he's gone through in his design, I still think it's a really nice and simple one with a good sense of personality.
There's not much to say about Graveler in terms of his personality, though, as he's a very simple Pokemon who loves to roll. Fun for him, dangerous for everyone else. When I was a kid, I'd often ride with my parents to visit my Grandparents and we'd always pass this mountainous area with signs saying "Beware of Falling Rocks"---because I was a huge Pokemon fan for years, and very imaginative, I'd always sort of have this fear that a giant Graveler would roll down any second and possibly crush us. Thankfully, this never happened, but getting killed by a boulder falling on you is probably one of the worst ways you could die. I gotta say, the morbid side of me wonders if you'd even feel that happening, or if you'd lose consciousness before realizing what had just happened. Anyway, back to Graveler, its favorite food is rocks, but this gets me wondering, do Pokemon who eat rocks eat Rock-type Pokemon, or are they able to tell the difference? Do Graveler ever eat their Geodude kids on accident thinking they're just little pebbles?
Graveler's only real important role in the entire show was being used way, way, way back in Kanto by Giselle in The School of Hard Knocks, delivering a smack-down to Misty's Starmie despite being at a major Type Disadvantage. Otherwise, Graveler doesn't enjoy the same popularity among Rock-type Gym Leaders like Geodude does, and thus has only made small appearances here and there throughout the rest of the show. You'll notice there's been a lot of Kanto Pokemon in the show who have pretty sparse appearances despite being around for almost 20 years.
#076 - Golem
Rock/Ground
Golem is the final evolution of Geodude, obtained by trading a Graveler. Golem, like Machamp, wasn't blessed with a Mega Evolution like the other two Link Evolutions, but he hasn't done too bad for himself---he's not the best Pokemon, but seems to be pretty solid, and unlike Machamp his Gen V counterpart didn't steal all of his thunder. Unlike its pre-evolutions, Golem actually did not appear in any of the Generation I games in the Wild or under the command of a Trainer, and thus the only way to see one would be to trade a Graveler. You could say Golem is far less important than his pre-evolutions then when it comes to his impact on the main adventure---even in later games, he's yet to appear in the Wild even though other final-form evolutions have begun to do so in the post-game. By the way, I always found it odd how the localization just named this dude "Golem" and called it a day. How does copyright work when your character is named after a mythological creature?
Golem's always bothered me due to how different he looks from Geodude and Graveler, he's one of the odder Gen I evolutions as he more or less ignores the design elements of his prior forms and just goes off and does his own thing. His design certainly isn't bad (but a step-down from Graveler in my opinion), but he feels out of place and I wonder if he was added later in development perhaps so they could have an extra Link Evolution. This might explain why he doesn't appear in the Generation I games except through evolving Graveler (there's an in-game trade in Japanese Blue though possibly to help players learn about this Pokemon), and according to Bulbapedia he's the only Pokemon to have this trait. I also think that Golem sort of looks like a relative of Onix due to the structure of his face, and his reptilian elements.
While Geodude and Graveler don't appear to be based off any animal, Golem is often compared to a turtle due to his shell---one early episode of the show implied that Golem's shell is like a turtle's shell, and he can withdraw his head and limbs within them, but I believe that was the only time such a trait was shown as far as I recall. The games don't seem to indicate he can do that, and I don't think he was ever shown doing that again in the show either. Golem's body parts seems to basically just stick out of its shell, and I imagine judging by its weight (660 is actually pretty light for such a creature, but for Pokemon that's basically equivalent to 10 tons), the shell isn't hollow but is solid rock all the way through. Like a lizard or a snake, Golem is said to regular shed its skin to grow bigger, but Game Freak never took advantage of this and gave it Shed Skin. Not that I mind, since the Abilities it got are far more useful for it than curing Status Effects which players probably wouldn't bother with on a Rock-type Pokemon.
One trait Golem does share with Graveler is its love of rolling---its rolling is such a common occurrence that folks who live up in the mountains dig paths especially for Golem to roll down so that it doesn't smash up their village. Golem also loves blowing itself up, and uses the force of this explosion to propel itself across mountains. How Pokemon using Self-Destruct and Explosion do so is somewhat of a mystery---presumably when Golem explodes, I imagine the rock shell is what explodes, sending the pieces flying at the opponent like shrapnel, whereas Golem's actual body remains perfect in-tact yet naked and temporarily weak. Either way, I always assume since most of the Pokemon who can use Self-Destruct and Explosion are material creatures, they are somehow able to reform---perhaps there's some core that enables this as long as it remains in-tact. But I have no clue how this works when it comes to animal-type Pokemon who can learn those moves. The show tend to just show Pokemon who self-destruct fainted afterward, but still presumably alive and in one-piece, where most of the manga usually seem to imply the Pokemon's entire body is destroyed---yet I don't think any manga has straight up said the Pokemon died as a result, and usually it's assumed they just get better off-screen.
Golem's debut was a bit like Graveler's, a small appearance in a Kanto episode, the Bridge Bike Gang, that wasn't even focused around it, and the Pokemon never really got an episode dedicated to it. We've seen quite a few important late-series Trainers use one though, opposite Geodude who always appears in the earlier episodes, such as Giovanni, Gary in the Johto League, Bertha of the Sinnoh Elite Four, and also Brock's dad (who shares his dub name with another member of the Sinnoh Elite Four) owns a Golem as his main Pokemon, and perhaps his partner from his Pokemon Trainer days.
