#086 - Seel
Water
Seel is pure-Water, but to be honest I tend to forget this and think it's Water/Ice like its evolution. Game Freak didn't seem to want to make any non-evolved Pokemon Ice in Generation I, I guess because they were meant to be a "rare" Type due to being the only real counter to Dragon-type Pokemon, but Seel not being Ice is quite odd as it shares all the elements of its evolution that's befitting the Ice-type such as its color-scheme, flavor text, and its moveset. As a Water-type Pokemon, it suffers a similar issue to Ponyta and Fire-type Pokemon in that there are plenty of Water-type Pokemon the player has likely encountered and added to their team by the time Seel is catchable late in the game---plus, to be honest, I don't think Seel's design is that exciting to make players want to catch it. In fact, to be completely honest, I think Seel is the most forgettable Generation I Pokemon.
Yeah, like Ponyta (who is somewhat its brother-in-arms...you can even trade a Ponyta for Seel at Cinnabar Island), I just have never cared for Seel whatsoever. To be fair, I don't think Seel is a badly designed Pokemon, in fact I find it to be quite cute and expressive which gives it a leg up over Ponyta for me, it's just somewhat boring, basically just being a seal (and its English name didn't help matters) and nothing more. Seel's one of those Pokemon who whenever I see and am reminded of, I always feel a strange need to look over its design and become familiar with it, even though it's been around for years, and something about its design just feels off and foreign to me, like there's a weird mental block keeping me from accepting it as a Pokemon. It seems a lot of folks feel pretty similarly about it, at the very least most people agree the localized name is pretty bad, and I've seen it on a few "most forgettable Pokemon" lists over the years. But maybe I'm being a bit unfair to it, and it actually has a bunch of fans I'm unaware of?
Anyway, Seel is known as the "Sea Lion" Pokemon, although it doesn't specifically seem to share any traits with them, in particular lacking ears, one of the biggest traits sea lions are known for in comparison to the "earless" seals. The seal Seel most resembles is the young harp seal, a member of the "earless seal" family who, three days after birth, is known for having a snow-white coat for twelve days or so as it matures...although the PokeDex says Seel's fur is "light-blue". Like "true seals", Seel does not have back flippers that can be used like legs, rather it has the typical rear-flipper which gives it less land mobility but makes it a skilled swimmer, and also is designed to resemble a water-spout to tie in the Water-type. Seel is yet another Pokemon who has a horn, a popular design motif in Generation I, and while this is not based on a trait any real seals have, it does serve an important purpose by allowing Seel to break through ice while swimming in order to breathe. This is based on a behavior that real seels do engage in, although in their case as they lack a horn, they instead are forced to break through the ice by shoving it with their nose, or using their claws and teeth to slowly dig their way through. Like many seals, Seel loves colder climates, although in Generation I it was found in the presumably warm Seafoam Islands since there wasn't any frigid areas in Kanto. Fire Red and Leaf Green fixed this issue by introducing a new area known as Icefall Cave where Seel were also found and seemed a much better home for the cold-loving Pokemon.
In the show, Seel was somewhat one of Misty's "honorary Pokemon", not explicitly owned by her but seemed to be shared by her and her sisters and responsible for keeping the Cascade Badge safe within its mouth. It later got a "focus episode", of sorts, in "The Misty Mermaid" where it got to fight Team Rocket and ended up evolving. And, well, that's pretty much it for Seel. Sorry.
#087 - Dewgong
Water/Ice
Dewgong is the evolved form of Seel, and our first Ice-type Pokemon! Ice-type Pokemon have always been treated a bit poorly by Game Freak---they have a ton of weaknesses yet only one resistance and that's to themselves, and are treated like second-class Pokemon as there usually isn't too many of them, even in colder Regions, and they tend to be distributed very late into the adventure. On the other hand, Ice-type moves are extremely useful, but many Water-type Pokemon can use them and because they have better resistances, are usually picked over actual Ice-type Pokemon even if they don't get STAB. Dewgong is part-Water, a common combination with Ice in Generation I that's one of the few Ice-type combinations that doesn't result in a bunch of additional weaknesses, but unfortunately this means Dewgong was outclassed from the get-go by another Water/Ice Pokemon introduced in Generation I which is not only stronger, but is given to the player as part of the story and thus many players had no need for Dewgong.
Dewgong is pretty much just a larger, more streamlined version of Seel with nothing too exciting happening to it during evolution---that's alright, though, because I do think it looks different enough to feel like a decent evolution and has a good design, but like Seel it's not exactly an imaginative Pokemon. Even though its name in both the localization and the original references the dugong, it shares very little with the creatures, its body looking far skinnier than the creature's infamously known as the sea cows, and preferring cold waters opposite the warm waters the dugong and its relatives the manatees are known to live in. The one thing it does share is its paddle-like tail, which also brings to mind a tail you might see on a mermaid---this is no coincidence, because in the real world, it was manatees and dugongs who were believed to inspire the legend of the mermaid (and thus are known as Sirenia), and in the Pokemon World, it's Dugong. Yes, sailors who saw Dugong chilling on the ice somehow mistook it for a beautiful woman, which you gotta wonder how desperate sailors of the Pokemon World must be, especially considering there are plenty of Pokemon who are far more...you know...mermaid-esque. But I'm getting ahead of myself, we still have awhile till we start getting to the creepy, sexualized humanoid Pokemon.
So, I don't have much else to add about Dewgong in general, so let's talk about its role in the show---of course as I mentioned above, the Cerulean Gym Seel evolved into Dewgong to defeat Team Rocket, but sadly that's the last time I recall it ever doing anything of interest, or even really appearing. The only other time Dewgong got a chance to shine, as it really never got a "focus episode", was when it was used by Pryce, which was actually my favorite Gym Battle in Johto in all honesty. You know, a lot of folks praise Special especially for how it portrays the Gym Leaders, and I usually agree, but I'm gonna have to put my foot down here and say what they did with Pryce in Pokemon Special was ridiculous. I'm sure you know the "twist" right now, but I thought his motivation was extremely weak and didn't jive whatsoever with all the stuff he ended up doing because of what happened to him. Pryce in the show, on the other hand, was a far better written character, who like the Special version had a tragic relationship with a Pokemon, but stayed grounded in how he reacted to that event and was far more sympathetic because of it. None of this really has anything to do with Dewgong, but this entry was pretty short and I had to get that off my chest.
