The power of Legendary and Mythical Pokemon, and its correlation to their status

[Phosphene]

So I was in the Anime and Manga section earlier today, and came across a discussion regarding Goh capturing a Zapdos (you can see the start of it here). One user said something to the tune of such a Legendary Pokemon was too powerful and essential to be captured by a trainer, a rookie no less, and another user countered that Melmetal was a Mythical that had been caught by a member of the main cast so capturing Legendary/Mythical Pokemon was becoming normalized in the show. The first user replied saying that Melmetal wasn't powerful and/or essential like Zapdos was, and was only a Mythical due to its rarity/uniqueness, and thus its ownership by Ash wasn't a good comparison. Or something to that effect, I can't remember the full details of the discussion. Anyways...

The point of this ramble is that it got me thinking about power and strength (excluding stats for the most part) in terms of Legendaries and Mythicals, and their status as those types of 'mons. Some of the Pokemon that fall into those categories clearly belong in a tier of their own, ex: Arceus or Reshiram, but others, in my opinion, only seem to be labeled as a Legendary or Mythical because of their rarity and uniqueness, and that label doesn't really differentiate them from regular Pokemon, lore-wise at least. For example, nothing lore-wise (in the games at least) really indicates that Zeraora is so much stronger than a regular Pokemon that it's in a tier of its own, in my opinion. While Zeraora's Shield entry talks about how lightening appears and thunder crashes when it runs, which makes it seem very powerful, I feel that's not anymore special than, say, Electivire's entries, and it doesn't elevate the Pokemon above regular ones in my opinion.

So, to conclude this starter post, do you think that some Pokemon are only Legendary or Mythical because GameFreak says so of how rare and limited they are, and not because of their (lore-based) powers?

 

[Leaf_Ranger]

So I was in the Anime and Manga section earlier today, and came across a discussion regarding Goh capturing a Zapdos (you can see the start of it here). One user said something to the tune of such a Legendary Pokemon was too powerful and essential to be captured by a trainer, a rookie no less, and another user countered that Melmetal was a Mythical that had been caught by a member of the main cast so capturing Legendary/Mythical Pokemon was becoming normalized in the show. The first user replied saying that Melmetal wasn't powerful and/or essential like Zapdos was, and was only a Mythical due to its rarity/uniqueness, and thus its ownership by Ash wasn't a good comparison. Or something to that effect, I can't remember the full details of the discussion. Anyways...

The point of this ramble is that it got me thinking about power and strength (excluding stats for the most part) in terms of Legendaries and Mythicals, and their status as those types of 'mons. Some of the Pokemon that fall into those categories clearly belong in a tier of their own, ex: Arceus or Reshiram, but others, in my opinion, only seem to be labeled as a Legendary or Mythical because of their rarity and uniqueness, and that label doesn't really differentiate them from regular Pokemon, lore-wise at least. For example, nothing lore-wise (in the games at least) really indicates that Zeraora is so much stronger than a regular Pokemon that it's in a tier of its own, in my opinion. While Zeraora's Shield entry talks about how lightening appears and thunder crashes when it runs, which makes it seem very powerful, I feel that's not anymore special than, say, Electivire's entries, and it doesn't elevate the Pokemon above regular ones in my opinion.

So, to conclude this starter post, do you think that some Pokemon are only Legendary or Mythical because GameFreak says so of how rare and limited they are, and not because of their (lore-based) powers?

To sum it up, yes. Continuing to use Melmetal as an example, the fact is that it had some lore but nothing that was said to be thaaat great and it seems more of a rare/hard to obtain Pkmn than the stuff of legends. To this day, I don't even know to what region it belongs...there was a rumour before the release of ShSw about armored Pkmn and Melmetal would be fitting of such story but...it was just a rumour and Melmetal ended up as a gimmick Pkmn to promote Go and Let's Go.
Let's take a look at Dratini and how I believe it was considered a mythical Pkmn because of it's extreme difficulty to obtain it to the point where it could be a myth until it wascaught by a fisherman.
This is also why I'd like GF to develop the lore of Mythical and/or Legendary Pkmn.

 

[Emmy]

Didn't Noland befriend an Articuno in the anime and it fought alongside him? And for that matter, didn't another one of the Frontier Brains actually have the three Regi's on his team?

Considering everything that's been said, it definitely feels like the anime doesn't treat the Legendaries/Mythicals like they're on a super high pedestal that non-MC trainers can't meet and catch. I for one wouldn't be opposed to the idea of Gou capturing Zapdos so long as it was handled properly and it didn't overshadow his other Pokemon.

 

[Esserise]

I don't think "Legendary" and "Mythical" mean anything in terms of power; I think they quite demonstrably are just flavorful jargon meant to indicate distribution status. Legendary means 1-per-save-file, Mythical means only obtainable through special methods or limited-time giveaways. There's a few exceptions here and there, and naturally so after 25 years, but for the most part, that logic is the one that I think still holds up best.

To this day, I don't even know to what region it belongs...

I mean, there's quite a few Pokémon like that, especially recently. Togepi, Corphish, Manaphy, Yungoos, Cufant, Kubfu (sort of), and Zarude are all said to be from regions other than the ones they were introduced in - it's just that as far as formal categorization goes, Game Freak/TPC (understandably) only care about the introductory regions, and in that regard, Meltan wasn't introduced in any region, since it was revealed through Pokémon GO. So the GO Pokédex (which groups by region) puts it under "???" and HOME files it under "unknown region."

(Amusingly, Gigantamax Melmetal's Sword Pokédex entry at least says, "In a distant land, there are legends about a cyclopean giant. In fact, the giant was a Melmetal that was flooded with Gigantamax energy." which... how, if Dynamax is only found in Galar, lol? And during the Special Research quest for Meltan in GO, Willow tells us that, "According to these records, Melmetal was once regarded as a sacred being in a secluded community deep inside a wooded land that was rich with magnetite-bearing sedimentary rock. People there developed ways to make unique tools out of metal shed by Melmetal. Without such metal, they couldn't have made these tools back then." Anyway, all this to say that this "distant wooded land" probably isn't anywhere we know.)

 

[Nicolas721]

Legendaries have more or less kept their quality and style in design and lore over the years. Some are more interesting than others but they feel like mysterious and powerful beasts you shouldn't be happy to encounter. I think scientists choose that classification in-universe because of them belonging to the Undiscovered egg group as well as their lack of friendliness for humans (with a couple exceptions). I think they are very strong, but possibly aren't used in battles much because they are just not used to receive commands.

Mythicals on the other hand aren't even the shadow of what they were. They had an excellent start with Mew and Celebi and you were truly hyped for upcoming mythicals, but nowadays...ugh. The first strike came with Shaymin, who looked like a mix between a Grass starter and a route 1 rodent (through his form change relieved that a bit), the second came with Volcanion who had only one in-game event and the third one came with Zeraora who had zero lore and zero uniqueness. Nowadays they are just normal Pokemon who look marketable enough to have their own movie, lore potential and influence in the region be damned. I think they're probably strong enough to go hand-to-hand with fully evolved Pokemon, with the only unstoppable powerhouses being Mew, Deoxys, Darkrai, Arceus and Genesect. I think they're given the mythical label because of their extremely rare status, to the point everyone is unsure to whether they live in the region or not. Many of them seem to have camouflaging, teleportation or intangibility powers to go with that.

 

[Esserise]

Zeraora who had zero lore

Zerolora L.O.L.

I think they're given the mythical label because of their extremely rare status, to the point everyone is unsure to whether they live in the region or not. Many of them seem to have camouflaging, teleportation or intangibility powers to go with that.

To be honest I think I kind of like this approach though. I mean, I think they could definitely give Mythicals more to do in-game, but "Legendaries = god-tier figures of human mythology, Mythicals = basically in-universe cryptids/Bigfoots" seems hypothetically like a nice general way to split the difference. If anything, I sort of think it feels weirder to have the likes of Darkrai and Arceus lumped in with the other Mythicals, since they're so closely connected to Legendary Pokémon. (What honestly is the difference between Cresselia and Darkrai other than their availability? Why can't Sailor Eldritch bring you right over to Newmoon Island just as easily as Fullmoon Island?)

(And why is Cresselia - a Pokémon based on crescent moons - found on Fullmoon Island?)

 

[Nicolas721]

@Esserise Darkrai could be the equivalent of the boogeyman, and I'm sure its dark colors help it camouflage on the night and that it doesn't meet with humans usually. Same with Arceus, it has no reason to come to our world. Genesect could be argued that it deserves the same category as Mewtwo, but unlike him Genesect was never awakened or used. Keldeo is the troubling one, I could came with some explanation but it would sound like a headcanon.

 

[Silktree]

I used to have a problem with legendaries not being unique in the anime (most likely not even Arceus, unless they couldn't be bothered to give it a line in the Hoopa movie), but it can't be helped these days. I'll accept Go having a connection with Zapdos if it is treated like Noland's Articuno, which is to say that no Poke Ball is used and the bird only shows up for important events. That isn't what the Poke Ball in the opening implies, but hopefully that's very temporary.

As for the games, let's make a quick round up of legendaries/mythicals/UBs known or implied not to be unique:

Bird trio: Have regular encounters in LGPE (for fun, but Mewtwo was excluded) as well as regional variants. I'd like to think that they're unique in the older games, but that's me.
Entei: Said to be born every time a volcano erupts (according to the Pokedex). This is weak evidence considering that it isn't associated with any volcano and nothing like that is said about Raikou or Suicune, though.
Regis: Either Regigigas is very good at moving them around or there are several of them scattered between Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Galar. They have a proper habitat in each of these regions (maybe they're just Max Raid Pokemon in the DLC despite the new temples).
Latias: "They make a small herd of only several members." This probably extends to Latios, or he might be the head of a harem. Take your pick (in the movie credits, Latias is the one that enjoys the company of a second Latios).
Heatran: Same reason as the Regis (for Sinnoh and Unova), plus the gender dichotomy is probably not pointless.
Zygarde: Two of the of the original Zygarde can co-exist, but by definition Complete Forme should be unique.
UBs: Guzzlord is the only one not shown or implied not to be one of a kind, but here we run into multiverse questions. It's certainly possible that except for the Poipole line, multiple versions of the same UB come from different universes. You can only find one per Ultra habitat in USUM. It turns out the original ones respawn in USUM even after you catch them.
Cosmog line: Two exist per game (restricted to the same evolution path), but they come from different universes.
Melmetal: Unlike with Complete Forme, there isn't a cap on how many Meltan/Melmetal you can get using one Go account. The lore just refers to a group of Meltan.
Zeraude: "Zarude lives in a pack deep in the heart of dense forests."

Finally, I agree that Mew and Celebi are mythicals done right, Jirachi had potential (the lack of in-game lore hurts), Deoxys was fine but these days it's essentially a UB (and regularly obtainable to boot), Darkrai should have been a legendary and Arceus really needed to be relegated to lore (ala the Original Dragon). The rest are meh, and that includes Genesect which could have been a Volcarona-like fossil Pokemon or even a pseudo-legendary. We all know why so many of them exist.

 

[Esserise]

@Esserise Darkrai could be the equivalent of the boogeyman, and I'm sure its dark colors help it camouflage on the night and that it doesn't meet with humans usually. Same with Arceus, it has no reason to come to our world. Genesect could be argued that it deserves the same category as Mewtwo, but unlike him Genesect was never awakened or used. Keldeo is the troubling one, I could came with some explanation but it would sound like a headcanon.

That's all true, but then, you could just as easily flip the question, like why isn't Cresselia considered a Mythical? It's probably just as rarely seen as Darkrai; it similarly isolates itself on a secluded island. Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina all normally live in other dimensions and don't come to this world unless summoned.

As for the games, let's make a quick round up of legendaries/mythicals/UBs known or implied not to be unique:

There's also Keldeo I think, since it's mentioned that it was separated from its parents. Unless those parents were some species other than Keldeo.

Kubfu is also demonstrably non-unique. Can be either gender, and is owned by both you and Mustard. (In fact, Honey's Rare League card has her posing with both variants of Urshifu.)

There are at least a few Type: Null/Silvally running around at this point.

Oh and there's Diancie, since it's said to be a rare mutation of Carbink. There could be more than one.

UBs: Guzzlord is the only one not shown or implied not to be one of a kind, but here we run into multiverse questions. It's certainly possible that except for the Poipole line, multiple versions of the same UB come from different universes. You can only find one per Ultra habitat in USUM.

In USUM, you actually can catch however many you want of the original 7 UBs. But I guess you could imagine that you're going to a different Ultra Deep Sea/Plant/Ruin/etc. each time (well, maybe not the Ultra Ruin, since the lone survivor remembers you on repeat visits).

 

[Silktree]

There's also Keldeo I think, since it's mentioned that it was separated from its parents. Unless those parents were some species other than Keldeo.

I'd forgotten about that. They were definitely not legendaries and probably Water-type only. Something like Carbink.

Kubfu is also demonstrably non-unique. Can be either gender, and is owned by both you and Mustard. (In fact, Honey's Rare League card has her posing with both variants of Urshifu.)

Ah yes, the bear that is a legendary just because.

Oh and there's Diancie, since it's said to be a rare mutation of Carbink. There could be more than one.

In theory.

In USUM, you actually can catch however many you want of the original 7 UBs. But I guess you could imagine that you're going to a different Ultra Deep Sea/Plant/Ruin/etc. each time (well, maybe not the Ultra Ruin, since the lone survivor remembers you on repeat visits).

Then Bulbapedia is misleading ("only one"). I guess you can only revisit the same universe for the reason you stated and also the reported distance in light years probably not changing?

 

[Esserise]

Then Bulbapedia is misleading ("only one"). I guess you can only revisit the same universe for the reason you stated and also the reported distance in light years probably not changing?

I think it means “only one” per visit, but yeah that could probably be phrased better.

The light year distance does change, because it depends on how far you get into the Ultra Wormhole on each individual run, but I’m not sure how seriously we should read the light years score in the first place. I mean it kinda makes it sound like we’re just traveling to other planets in the main universe, which isn’t really what’s happening. Though I guess if I had to come up with a quick technobabble fix, I’d say that the fabric of space inside the wormhole is fluid and that the distance from the main world to any of the specific Ultra Worlds isn’t always going to be the same, even if it’s the same Ultra World you went to before.

 

[Silktree]

I think it means “only one” per visit, but yeah that could probably be phrased better.

The light year distance does change, because it depends on how far you get into the Ultra Wormhole on each individual run, but I’m not sure how seriously we should read the light years score in the first place. I mean it kinda makes it sound like we’re just traveling to other planets in the main universe, which isn’t really what’s happening. Though I guess if I had to come up with a quick technobabble fix, I’d say that the fabric of space inside the wormhole is fluid and that the distance from the main world to any of the specific Ultra Worlds isn’t always going to be the same, even if it’s the same Ultra World you went to before.

I'm going to hazard a guess that Game Freak didn't give this much thought. Still, that Ultra Ruin survivor remembering you is stronger than numbers.