#131 - Lapras
Water/Ice
We've had a couple of Water/Ice Pokemon so far, but Lapras is probably the most popular. To be honest, I don't really understand why it's Ice exactly except because it learns Ice-type moves, but I guess Ice fans have to take what they can get...oh, wait, Ice has no fans. Lapras played an important role in Red and Blue, basically given to the player during the story, and with its powerful stats, as well as being designed to be the Pokemon you'll probably teach Surf to (even representing Surf in Gen II), it's no surprise a lot of players added it to their team and they were rewarded with a powerful Pokemon who could stand up to Lance of the Elite Four with ease. XY went for the Kanto nostalgia and gave you a Lapras as well, right at the point you need Surf to continue your adventure, and it has a unique Surf model, but it lacked the same impact and felt a bit shallow, as in Red and Blue you were rewarded with one after you made your way through a difficult dungeon battling against Team Rocket while XY just handed it to you without any subtlety, treating it no different from all the other items NPCs just hand out from the goodness of their hearts. Well, that's XY for you! Anyway, Lapras was always a strong Pokemon with its high HP, but has fallen down a bit over the years due to not having any notable specialties setting it apart, and its Ice-type being seen as ultimate a hindrance adding common weaknesses to Fighting and Rock-type attacks. Lapras also hasn't gotten anything new, either, such as a Baby, even though it seems like the type of Pokemon who is deserving of one, although in Generation IV there was a certain Pokemon everyone thought was a Baby Lapras at first. Still though, you can't hate on Lapras, and perhaps always being just Lapras is good enough.
In Rhydon's entry, I mentioned that according to Sugimori he, Clefairy, and Lapras were the first three Pokemon created, and I think it's neat because they illustrate the variety of roles that Pokemon can take. Rhydon represents the main idea of Pokemon, a powerful creature under your command that you fight alongside with, while Clefairy is more like a cute pet which you keep around the house. And finally Lapras represents the Pokemon who assist humans by acting like a boat and ferrying them across the water, playing a vital role in making the life of humans easier. I've always thought the Pokemon who are shown to have a relationship like that with human society are perhaps the neatest, and I always like when the show has an episode showing how Pokemon perform a wide variety of jobs, even though it does beg a moral question if making Pokemon work for you, presumably with no pay is the same as using work animals since they're implied to be much more intelligent and emotional in comparison. Lapras in particular is implied to be smarter than the average Pokemon, capable of understanding human speech (although as I've mentioned almost every Pokemon seems capable of that in most media), and even said to have telepathic abilities. There's a bit of sadness behind Lapras, though, because despite its kind nature and intelligence, it's an endangered Pokemon because it is so accustomed to humans it's easily tricked by them and hunted down. It's never said why people hunt Lapras, or if they're being simply put in captivity instead of killed, but I imagine perhaps their shell or horn fetches a price on the black market. The Lapras you receive from Silph Co. in Generation I is probably one such Lapras, taken from its family and given to you basically to serve as your slave---but perhaps it can sense the inherent goodness of the player, and ultimately wants to help him accomplish his goal. In recent games, Lapras has become slightly more plentiful, but still quite rare, often appearing in one location and rarely at that.
There's actually early prototype drawings of Lapras from the Capsule Monster days, and it never really changed much---it always had the horn, so it doesn't seem like it was thrown on like with a lot of Generation I Pokemon last minute, but it did lack the curly ears which I think made it look a bit ugly. Adding the ears was a nice choice, as it gives a sense of balance to the design and doesn't make the shell stick out as much. Lapras' general design and rarity brings to mind the aquatic reptile plesiosaurus, which everyone is familiar with due to inspiring the legend of the Loch Ness Monster (and in fact Lapras was originally gonna be called Ness by NOA), while it also has elements of other aquatic creatures such as a large shell you might see on a sea turtle, and elements of a seal perhaps. Some also think it's long neck is meant to resemble the mast of viking ships which often resembled sea monsters, and I can see that honestly. I've seen a lot of fan Pokemon based even more so on viking ships, I know Smogon made such a creature for CAP, and I'm surprised that they never created a counterpart to Lapras in Generation III or V to take over the role of a primary surfing Pokemon. I don't mind Game Freak creating similar Pokemon over the years, so I wouldn't mind. Fans of Lapras can continue liking it, and new fans might like the newer one more, but it's a win/win as far as I'm concerned.
Like quite a few classic Pokemon who kept their Japanese name more or less, there's always been a sense of ambiguity over what the name of Lapras actually means. Popular theories are that it derives from "la place", French for "seat" referencing the purpose of its shell, while others think the name is derived from the stone lapis lazuli, which like Lapras is a beautiful blue and known for its rarity and value. The one I like though is the belief it's a bit more intelligent name, derived from the Pierre-Simon Laplace, a famous French mathematician who is basically considered on the same level of Newton. But, this is one I never really researched into now, because I use to see the claim he specialized in studying the sea and tides, but that was only a really small part of what he focused on, so I'm kind of doubtful now and I think the "la place" or "lapis", or a combination of the two, are probably more likely. Still, we don't really know for certain why Game Freak named certain Pokemon like they did, so it's up to your own interpretation.
Lapras' first appearance in the show, which people probably forgot about, was actually in the eventual banned episode "Holiday Hi-Jynx" where it was capable of using telepathy to directly communicate with humans in the same way Legendaries do, and worked for Santa Claus. Yeah, fuck that shit. But most people remember its far more memorable role in the Orange Islands where it served as the main means of transportation for Ash and his friends, but didn't do too much else, being involved in a race to win an Orange League badge, and later taking part in the battle against Drake but tying with his Gengar. Lapras left after the Orange Islands to join up with the herd it had been separated from, but popped up again in Johto now more mature and the leader of the herd. Unlike everyone else in the entire show, Lapras had noticeably aged. Although Ash did catch it, it seems it's not considered one of his anymore, as in the Japanese opening Spurt it was noticeably absent from the beginning line-up of his Pokemon which included Butterfree and Pidgeot, instead merely popping up in a separate scene later on shown surfing alongside Ash and Co. So, yeah, probably won't see it ever again.