What are your game headcanons?

[toastghost]

Gym Leaders are elected by the town (I don't recall if this was canon or not) and there's a possibility for the candidates to be very young like Allister and can be too gym leaders if they ran together, which explains Tate and Liza. When Gym Leaders depend on the version of the game (like in Galar), its 2 timelines where the 2 most voted candidates were chosen in each timeline.

 

[BackSet]

Wasn't it said that they were two brothers, or am I misremembering? Granted, they could be both a married couple and siblings.

Oh God...

I mean, the time period's about right for that kind of bullshit I think.

Not the right time period for gay rights, though.

 

[Esserise]

(I don't recall if this was canon or not)

As far as the games go, they've never really made it clear how a person becomes a Gym Leader. Gym Leaders are very talented so I presume there must be an official qualification test of some sort, and I guess it's vague enough to where you could squeeze in an election process as well. Although personally, I don't tend to think of Gym Leaders as political powers - I feel like it would be odd to emphasize Drayden's status as a city mayor if that were actually the default position of all Gym Leaders. I think it's supposed to be his unique character flavor, like Lt. Surge being an army soldier or Clay being a mining tycoon. That said, it's certainly not uncommon for Gym Leaders to hold positions of importance within their respective communities, though this may be a case of correlation without causation - it makes sense that people who are talented Trainers would fall into such positions, and might then also choose to pursue Gym Leadership.

 

[Tood]

Gym Leaders are elected by the town (I don't recall if this was canon or not)

As far as the games go, they've never really made it clear how a person becomes a Gym Leader. Gym Leaders are very talented so I presume there must be an official qualification test of some sort, and I guess it's vague enough to where you could squeeze in an election process as well.

It's never really been consistent, as shown by the few examples we have of characters becoming leaders...?

-Sabrina got her gym through defeating the Karate King and his dojo
-Falkner, Janine and a few others have their gyms due to inheritance from their family members
-I think Sootopolis city (with Juan/Wallace) and Oreburgh city (idk what that riley/roark gym thing was about, exactly though) gyms demonstrate that they can also be directly handed off to some kind of pupil/friend of the previous leader.

 

[Esserise]

-Sabrina got her gym through defeating the Karate King and his dojo

This one is especially weird since it almost feels like a territorial dispute. An NPC in Sabrina's Gym says this: "There used to be 2 Pokémon Gyms in Saffron. The Fighting Dojo next door lost its Gym status when we went and creamed them!"

This feels so much more feudal than Gyms nowadays, or even as far back as Gen 3. But it fits with my sense of the overall tonality of Gen 1, where Pokémon training was a bit like the Wild West, a sort of unregulated frontier, and Gyms were like gangs or cults of personality (but in a more code-honoring sense; Team Rocket are the actual criminal types) that formed around strong and popular Trainers. Actually, I'd love to see a game set in the universe's past that uses that kind of logic.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Bede became gym leader because the current gym leader chose him. I would expect it to be based on the whims of the current leader - if they want it to go to whomever challenges them for it and wins, so be it. Want to give it to your pupil or some random guy you encountered in the street who looked good in pink? Fine. Want to hand it off to your kid? That's your right.

I wonder at what point if at all the overall league would step in, though. Give your gym to a 5 year old, or a total incompetent, or walk away for years and make it impossible to get a badge (Blue), are they really going to let that slide indefinitely?

 

[prog rocker]

walk away for years and make it impossible to get a badge (Blue), are they really going to let that slide indefinitely?

Wouldn't that apply more to Giovanni, I mean, the gym sign doesn't even say the leader's name, and the guide was surprised it was him. How long do you have to leave that everyone forgets you?

 

[Nicolas721]

Wasn't it said that they were two brothers, or am I misremembering?

Nope. The brothers are Sordward and Shielbert, who are said to be descendants of the kings of Galar. So either the kings' lines of descent became one eventually by a descendant of King A marrying a descendant of King B, or it was always one line.

 

[BackSet]

Nope. The brothers are Sordward and Shielbert, who are said to be descendants of the kings of Galar. So either the kings' lines of descent became one eventually by a descendant of King A marrying a descendant of King B, or it was always one line.

Technically, if they're a gay couple it's still two lines because the only way to have children is adoption.

 

[Esserise]

Nope. The brothers are Sordward and Shielbert, who are said to be descendants of the kings of Galar. So either the kings' lines of descent became one eventually by a descendant of King A marrying a descendant of King B, or it was always one line.

Interesting emphasis on the plurality. This is something I've actually been wondering about recently - why do the tapestries depict two heroes while the statue in Motostoke conflates them into a single hero (with the mural in Stow-on-Side obscuring the truth)?

It's perhaps worth noting that although they introduce themselves as "descendants of the first kings," Sordward and Shielbert later refer to their progenitor in the singular - "we're the resplendent descendants of the real hero" and something about how their "ancestor" painted the mural in Stow-on-Side (and so, I gather, was actively responsible for covering up the truth).

My instinct says that the public version of Galar's history was that there was only one hero, as a result of some king (Great Granddaddy Sordbert - as you say, one line of royalty), somewhere along the line, choosing to obscure the truth about the wolves and take the credit for stopping the Darkest Day. Thus, Sordward and Shielbert get mad at you and Sonia for contradicting that account. But unlike the Stow-on-Side statues, it doesn't seem as though the tapestries are a recent discovery, or a guarded secret - it seems you just need permission from Raihan to go look at them. Which kinda goes against my sense that the "common knowledge" of the myth is of a lone hero with a sword and shield, and reframes it into a matter of "idk there was maybe one hero or two, but definitely no Pokémon nope no siree just a sword and a shield." The erasure becomes targeted at the involvement of Zacian and Zamazenta specifically, even though part of what the mural covers up is the fact that there were two humans instead of one.

For that matter, the two humans alongside Zacian and Zamazenta - what exactly did they contribute? It's almost like there's a double bluff going on:

1. One lone hero used a sword and a shield to stop the Darkest Day. Sordward and Shielbert are descended from him. This version of the story is a lie, though, created to take the credit from the wolves and glorify the king.

2. Actually, there wasn't one hero, but two - who each wielded one of the weapons and then became the founders and kings of Galar after ending the Darkest Day. But even this version of the story is a distortion, because the tapestries make only oblique hints at the wolves' presence, with the brothers looking somber at the Slumbering Weald in the fifth tapestry. So what is the truth? Did the brothers fight alongside Zacian and Zamazenta and later helped seal them by the shrine or something?

3. Actually, there were never any human heroes at all - the heroes were Zacian and Zamazenta themselves the whole time. Two siblings, one wielding a sword and one wielding a shield. They ushered in a new era for Galar until their power waned and they took to rest in the Slumbering Weald.

The smoothest way to make sense of it in my head is to omit the second part entirely and say that the tapestries, for whatever reason, depict Zacian and Zamazenta as humans. Why? Who knows, but the point is that there was just one king from whom Sordward and Shielbert descend (and I guess when they say "the first kings" they mean something more like "the early kings, as in, the first few"), who covered up the truth about the wolves in order to big himself up. Meanwhile it was actually all the wolves' doing. After all, there's this remark from Sonia when you go to Circhester:

> "The Hero’s Bath... They say this is where the two heroes came to sooth their wounds after the battle to bring down that evil presence, long ago. Nowadays only Pokémon really use the Hero’s Bath, though... Hmm... Who exactly were the heroes that bathed here? I think I’ll have to look into that."

Gee, only Pokémon use the bath, hmm?????

It feels like really obvious clue-dropping to me, that the heroes weren't people at all, but actually two Pokémon. But if all that's the case... then why are there two king statues alongside the Zacian and Zamazenta statues? Did all four of them take a bath together?

 

[Nicolas721]

Technically, if they're a gay couple it's still two lines because the only way to have children is adoption.

Sometimes heritage matters more than bloodlines.

It feels like really obvious clue-dropping to me, that the heroes weren't people at all, but actually two Pokémon. But if all that's the case... then why are there two king statues alongside the Zacian and Zamazenta statues? Did all four of them take a bath together?

Wow, you always blow my mind. Maybe the information is contradictory on purpose to show how history becomes deteriorated with time. I hope it's addressed in Crown but with Game Freak's history I have zero expectations.

 

[BackSet]

I always assumed that the two heroes worked with the two wolves.

 

[Phosphene]

I always assumed that the two heroes worked with the two wolves.

Me too. I assumed it was basically a Max Raid battle similar to the one the player and Hop have with the wolves against Eternatus at the end of the game. Which is why I always felt that the post-game story was rather weak because Sonia, or at least how I interpreted it, made it seem like the two heroes weren't involved at all with the defeat of Eternatus when the game seemed to imply it was a team effort.

 

[BackSet]

Me too. I assumed it was basically a Max Raid battle similar to the one the player and Hop have with the wolves against Eternatus at the end of the game. Which is why I always felt that the post-game story was rather weak because Sonia, or at least how I interpreted it, made it seem like the two heroes weren't involved at all with the defeat of Eternatus when the game seemed to imply it was a team effort.

So in a way, the two weirdos with bad hair were sort of right, even though they were complete assholes.

 

[Esserise]

Wow, you always blow my mind. Maybe the information is contradictory on purpose to show how history becomes deteriorated with time. I hope it's addressed in Crown but with Game Freak's history I have zero expectations.

To some extent there's definitely a deliberate element of contradiction to show how the story has decayed over time - it's clear that everyone is supposed to have forgotten that the two wolves ever existed while accrediting the feat to a human(s) instead. The post-game plot revolves entirely around the difficulty in trying to bring this new history into the light. I'm just not completely clear on what exactly is supposed to have happened back then and who all was involved - just the wolves, or a pair of brothers alongside the wolves, and how do those brothers relate to Sordward and Shielbert's ancestor(s) as well as the single hero portrayed by the statue in Motostoke. But to be fair, I think a lot of Legendary Pokémon lore runs into this sort of problem when you try to deep-dive into the details.

On a tangential note, the overwhleming male-ness of the story strikes me as a little strange, since the Pokédex genders Zacian as female (or at least, indicates that humans assert their notions of femininity onto it). Two brothers in the past, two brothers in the present supposedly descended from them, plus you and Hop assuming the new role of the two heroes. Could we maybe get a woman in there somewhere, please? I think it would only make even more sense if there was a male and a female hero in the past who became king and queen after the battle, and therefore were both Sordward and Shielbert's ancestors.

(Matter of fact, why do all the royal conflicts in Pokémon's history boil down to two brothers? The two who saved Galar from Eternatus. The twins who allied with the Original Dragon and founded Unova. Their sons who reignited their ideological dispute. AZ and his brother going to war over Kalos. It's starting to become a series trope. Looking back, it makes me appreciate that the only Draconids we ever met or heard of were women.)

 

[Hellospace]

I used to think Silver is female since I was new to the game. When I found out... You already know what happens next.

 

[BackSet]

I was wondering how long one of those would take.

37 pages ain't bad.

 

[techitisJ]

I have no idea if this has been posted before but it's 4am and I just thought of this!

Leon has always been absolute garbage with direction. Because of this, he and Sonia actually traveled through Galar together. He would often run up ahead and get lost though, and Sonia's Yamper always had to find him.

Something like this seems to be implied in the games actually. When introducing you to Sonia at the lab in the beginning of the game, Leon mentions how Yamper helped him when he got lost on the road back in the day. Sonia adds in she helped him out too. I wouldn't be too shocked if this headcanon I have was actually the case.

 

[RK9]

There is more than 1 trio of the Legendary Birds. One trio resides in Kanto, one trio is in Brandon's possession and 1 trio resides in Kalos. The Kalos trio is barely seen cause the region lacks habitats that reflect their preferences.

This is also supported by the release of

Spoiler

the Galarian Legendary Birds

. Which implies there exists at least one other trio alongside the Kanto trio.

Adding to this, the only reason they're deemed as Legendaries is because they ever so rarely appear and in a sense, are thus similar to Heatran who's also implied to not be one of a kind (Even though Heatran does have a gender, unlike the birds).

 

[BackSet]

They're also, you know, uber powerful guardians of nature so that's gotta count for something in the Legendary book.