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What are your game headcanons?

WARNING: POKÉMON SWORD AND SHIELD DLC SPOILERS!!!
In The Isle of Armor, Hop says that Sonia went off to a "snowy place", while he came to the island, heavily implying that Sonia went to the Crown Thundra.

Peony, a main character in The Crown Thundra DLC, is said to have a daughter who's come to the Crown Thundra to study the place.

I suspect that Peony is Sonia's father.
 
Two that just promptly developed in my head as I thought about the Slowpoke family.

  • The usual Slowbro breed's evolutionary requirement doesn't necessarily cause the Shellder to be summoned, rather, the level reflects the potency of the liquid that it secretes out of its tail, and Level 37 is just when the scent and allure of the secretion is enough for Shellder to immediately gun after it.
  • DLC Spoilers:
    The prospect of devolution for Galarian Slowbro-to-Slowpoke would likely be much, much more of a burden for it to deal with. Specifically, the fact that it'll lose its Poison typing, noting how Shellder gets clamped to an area that feels more pain than its naturally-detachable tail; that is, a limb, and how the official website describing Galarian Slowbro references chemical reactions from the Galarican 'spices'. The prospect of abruptly going cold-turkey to what could be chalked up to be a naturally toxic bloodstream (I mean, compare the muzzle and scaly underbelly on G-Slowbro to Regular Slowbro, and note how prevalent the purple patches on its body are compared to Galarian Slowpoke's yellow patches; even the Shiny still has purple patches.) would, at best, cause a really awful withdrawal effect for the poor simpleton. It really doesn't help that it's all-but stated that the Quick Draw ability and Galarian Slowbro's heightened initiative stems from said chemical reactions amplifying Galarian Slowpoke's fleeting sparks of brilliance from the 'spices' in its head.
 
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I generally think that no Legendary Pokémon is unique except for Mewtwo (and that's just because humans only ever created one; there is still a theoretical potential that more could be created if the means to do so were provided) and perhaps the Tapu. Everything else is fair game to me, although I also think that some Legendary Pokémon, like say the weather trio, don't exist in significant numbers anymore and the ones we encounter may be the only surviving specimen of their kind in the present day.
I think it’s safe to say that the Creation Trio (and Arceus) are unique.
 
I feel there could be multiple Arceus, if my headcanon that he's just an avatar is true.

Seeing that he has been referred to as "The Original One" and being the Alpha Pokémon, I think maintaining the fact it is unique is for the better so not to conflict with any lore.

However, I do dig the idea of Avatars. Maybe the Arceus people see is just a projection of the actual Arceus, who watches silently from above all. That sounds like it could be snuck in without much conflict with already existing premises.
 
I just don't think the creation myths are 100% true, so to my mind there's no reason why Arceus couldn't just be an extremely ancient and rare, possibly even alien, species. Especially if it's just the Unown's personal contractor. I think one specimen of the species probably did cool stuff to help the ancient Sinnohans and became deified by them in stories as a result. But nobody was actually present at the beginning of the universe, so no one can verify what actually happened.

The only reason I think the tapu are unique is because Alola is a very small and relatively unique and isolated geographical environment. Much like the real Hawaii, the specific conditions of which produced very unusual and diverse wildlife. The conditions needed for the tapu to come into existence are, I suspect, extremely uncommon. Should those conditions ever occur again, then more could theoretically be born (I believe the same of Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem), but it's just not very likely.

At the end of the day, every Pokémon has a Shiny variant, and I consider Shinies to be the result of a genetic mutation. So in order for every Pokémon to have a Shiny coloration, in my head there needs to be at least two in existence (or at least the potential for a second specimen to exist).
 
I don't like the idea of most Legendaries not being unique because it takes away a lot of the mystique. These are supposed to be mysterious uber-pokemon on lar with gods and having multiple of them just kind of ruins it for me. Why are there shinies and why can you have more than one? Game mechanics, that's why. (Also because I actually do think there's multiple sets of legendary birds, each with a Lugia to watch over them).
 
I just don't think the creation myths are 100% true, so to my mind there's no reason why Arceus couldn't just be an extremely ancient and rare, possibly even alien, species. Especially if it's just the Unown's personal contractor. I think one specimen of the species probably did cool stuff to help the ancient Sinnohans and became deified by them in stories as a result. But nobody was actually present at the beginning of the universe, so no one can verify what actually happened.

The only reason I think the tapu are unique is because Alola is a very small and relatively unique and isolated geographical environment. Much like the real Hawaii, the specific conditions of which produced very unusual and diverse wildlife. The conditions needed for the tapu to come into existence are, I suspect, extremely uncommon. Should those conditions ever occur again, then more could theoretically be born (I believe the same of Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem), but it's just not very likely.

Why would Alola's conditions be "extremely uncommon" but Sinnoh's not?

At the end of the day, every Pokémon has a Shiny variant, and I consider Shinies to be the result of a genetic mutation. So in order for every Pokémon to have a Shiny coloration, in my head there needs to be at least two in existence (or at least the potential for a second specimen to exist).

Well, the Tapus all have shinies as well that were distributed.
 
I don't like the idea of most Legendaries not being unique because it takes away a lot of the mystique. These are supposed to be mysterious uber-pokemon on lar with gods and having multiple of them just kind of ruins it for me. Why are there shinies and why can you have more than one? Game mechanics, that's why. (Also because I actually do think there's multiple sets of legendary birds, each with a Lugia to watch over them).

Well for me, "mystique" comes more from actions taken (as well as presentation) than from an implied census count. Besides, even if there are more than one of a Legendary Pokémon, it's not as if they're suddenly common. Three or even ten Dialga being in existence is still absurdly rare when there are millions or billions of specimens for any other non-Legendary species.

And personally, I just tend to think having a literal singular god for every conceivable aspect of nature is a boring way to create exposition about the world. I'm more interested in the anthropological aspect of what did this Pokémon do, that caused humans to think of it in these terms? How did Pokémon and humans interact in ancient times? And it makes sense that Legendary Pokémon, having the power that they do, would (as Cynthia tells us) become interpreted by early humans as gods and become central fixtures of cultural tales and stories that get handed down and distorted over time. Same as humans in real life did when we saw the awesome power of volcanoes, lightning, hurricanes, and other awesome forces of nature, or even aspects of our own psyche and society (gods of war or the hunt or music and such). We processed those phenomena and told stories about them. Whether they were true or not isn't what matters so much as what that tells us about the human condition.

Take Volcarona for example. It is explicitly not a Legendary Pokémon; Alder has owned two, his grandson owns one, and you can get a Larvesta egg from a random Breeder while also finding a fully-grown Volcarona in the Relic Castle. And yet, even though it's not "unique," it's still got a "mystique" about it. It's still a rare Pokémon presented to us in a way that indicates it is "special," and it figures into legends and receives human reverence due to the actions of a particular specimen in the past.

And yes, there's always the "game mechanics" excuse, but the practice of headcanoning is more interesting to me when it tries to work with game mechanics than when it just conveniently ignores them.

Why would Alola's conditions be "extremely uncommon" but Sinnoh's not?

Because Alola is a tropical island far away from any other landmass. Until its eventual discovery by humans, it would have provided a uniquely isolated and undisturbed environment for life to develop. Sinnoh on the other hand is very close to several other regions as well as a presumable mainland if we account for the parallels with real-world geography, and has been inhabited by humans since very distant ancient times. If we compare to real history, Hawaii has only been inhabited by humans for about 1,500 years. Meanwhile, Japan may have been inhabited since 35,000 BC. This, along with geographical relation to other countries, does make an impact on the development of life.

(All of which is a moot point if it turns out Arceus is extraterrestrial, which I think is fairly likely, because then the sky's the limit, but frankly all of this is moot anyway since we know that Pokémon is a multiverse. That's how the anime justified Shiny Tapu Koko, after all, not that it's ever particularly cared about the implications of showing multiples of Legendary Pokémon.)

Well, the Tapus all have shinies as well that were distributed.

They certainly did. And like I said, theoretically, I think more tapu could come into existence that could potentially possess the mutation, I just don't think any actually have had the chance to, within my interpretation of the setting.
 
To be quite honest, I 100% believe that there are only one of all box art legendaries except for the Creation trio as well as Solgaleo and Lunala. To me, there's only one Reshiram, Zekrom and Kyurem for example.
 
Take Volcarona for example. It is explicitly not a Legendary Pokémon; Alder has owned two, his grandson owns one, and you can get a Larvesta egg from a random Breeder while also finding a fully-grown Volcarona in the Relic Castle. And yet, even though it's not "unique," it's still got a "mystique" about it. It's still a rare Pokémon presented to us in a way that indicates it is "special," and it figures into legends and receives human reverence due to the actions of a particular specimen in the past.
You can catch Larvesta legitimately in UsUm.
Three or even ten Dialga being in existence is still absurdly rare
Yeah that's just dumb. It makes no sense. Why woukd there be multiple Pokemon that can control time. Do you understand the implications of that. The potential damage to the space time continuum if even two of those decided to...

Wait, that actually kind of explains why the Pokemon timeline is so messed up.
 
DLC Spoilers:
If the Isle of Armor never happened, Leon likely would've retained his Champion's seat. Victor/Gloria happened to run into Klara/Avery shortly after the Gym Challenge began, and the boy/girl who really did enlist at the dojo but was put-off by Klara's/Avery's attitude also had brown hair & brown eyes, so they looked similar. They decided to enroll at the dojo anyway after hearing that Leon trained there too, thinking the program would help them become strong enough to have a shot at actually becoming Champion. And in the end, their Gigantamax Blastoise (which they received as a Squirtle from Honey) would defeat Leon's Gigantamax Charizard, making them the new Champion.
 
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Yeah that's just dumb. It makes no sense. Why woukd there be multiple Pokemon that can control time.

It's not really a problem if you don't assume that they actually have all-encompassing dominion over time, but rather can just manipulate tachyons and such to a notable extent, and that again, like Cynthia said, ancient people witnessed this and didn't fully understand what was going on. Ultimately, I think Pokémon are essentially strange animals with special powers, so that's going to be the lens through which I interpret every individual species.

Though frankly there are plenty of fictional universes with far more wild, free-for-all pantheons than "a couple of Dialgas coexisting." Marvel and DC Comics jump to mind.
 
Though frankly there are plenty of fictional universes with far more wild, free-for-all pantheons than "a couple of Dialgas coexisting." Marvel and DC Comics jump to mind.
I mean... that type of territory makes literally everything meaningless. No deaths matter, no personalities matter, no actions matter, anything can be reversed (no offence to comic fans, but such stuff in Pokémon... isn’t really a good supplement to it’s already mediocre story writing).
 
Yeah comics really aren't a fair comparison for the reasons stated above.

I mean, Cap's died, like, 10 times if you count all the times he faked his death for one reason or another.
 
I mean... that type of territory makes literally everything meaningless. No deaths matter, no personalities matter, no actions matter, anything can be reversed (no offence to comic fans, but such stuff in Pokémon... isn’t really a good supplement to it’s already mediocre story writing).
And thankfully, they haven't used the multiverse for any of those things.
 
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