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Why do you think Gen 1 introduced so many Poison types?

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I mean, seriously:

  • Bulbasaur
  • Ivysaur
  • Venusaur
  • Weedle
  • Kakuna
  • Beedrill
  • Zubat
  • Golbat
  • Oddish
  • Gloom
  • Vileplume
  • Bellsprout
  • Weepinbell
  • Victreebel
  • Venonat
  • Venomoth
  • Koffing
  • Weezing
  • Ekans
  • Arbok
  • Nidoran (male and female)
  • Nidorino
  • Nidorina
  • Nidoqueen
  • Nidoking
  • Tentacool
  • Tentacruel
  • Gastly
  • Haunter
  • Gengar
That's 31 Pokemon or a whopping 21% of the original 151. It's interesting because Poison wasn't even a viable type back when it was introduced. The only type it could hit super-effectively was Grass...which amounted to an enemy Tangela since all the other Grass types lacked a Poison weakness. Consequently, it had more weaknesses than resistances or advantages. Not to mention, they had horrible and basically nonexistent STAB moves to damage opposing Pokemon with. I just realized all of this recently because I'm trying to make a new, theoretical Kanto game and the myriad of Poison types suddenly became explicit. Anyways, why do you think there were so many made? Any of these listed Pokemon you feel shouldn't have been classified as Poison?
 
It is a bit unusual that they felt the need to make the Bulbasaur line part Poison what with the other Grass/Poison types, although it does help them defensively against Poison attacks, as well as Bug past Generation I. It’s also odd that the Gastly line is part Poison when only Gastly itself really has that toxic fumes motif going for it. Other than that, I think the Gen I Poison-types make sense for the most part, even if it was an underwhelming attacking type before Fairies came into play.

And technically, Exeggcute and Exeggutor are weak to Poison, too, though they can attack super effectively right back. :p
 
Honestly, most of these seem apropos to the Poison type in certain ways except, as MegaPod mentioned, the Gastly line. I honestly feel that the only reason Haunter and Gengar are part-Poison to begin with is to simply be consistent with their basic stage, Gastly; which just feels a bit obsolete when one considers that stuff like Bellossom, Mega Aggron, and Alolan Marowak were later introduced.

But yeah, I've always subconsciously felt as if Poison was a little all over the place in Kanto, but never really had any opportunity to really think about it till now. I think the reason why there's a relatively large amount of Poison types introduced back then was to sort of establish it as something of a go-to 'enemy/mob/mook/bad guy' element among the types. The majority of Team Rocket Grunts and especially the Scientists (mentioned here as this class was affiliated with Team Rocket back then and most of them only appeared during the Silph Co. invasion) in the Kanto games had at least one or two Poison types on their teams. Hell, even Giovanni himself had a few Poison types in his team; the Nido family to be specific.
 
Because villains.
Poison was the villainous type before Dark was. Also, Kanto is a bit of a post-apocalyptic wasteland in those games. If they had been introduced in gen 2 it would be such:

  • Bulbasaur - pure grass
  • Ivysaur
  • Venusaur
  • Weedle
  • Kakuna
  • Beedrill
  • Zubat - dark\flying
  • Golbat - dark\flying
  • Oddish
  • Gloom
  • Vileplume
  • Bellsprout - pure grass
  • Weepinbell - pure grass
  • Victreebel - grass\dark
  • Venonat
  • Venomoth
  • Koffing
  • Weezing
  • Ekans - dark
  • Arbok - dark
  • Nidoran (male and female) - dark
  • Nidorino - dark
  • Nidorina - dark
  • Nidoqueen - dark\ground
  • Nidoking - dark\ground
  • Tentacool
  • Tentacruel
  • Gastly - ghost\dark
  • Haunter - ghost\dark
  • Gengar - ghost\dark
 
Given that Poison was weak against Bug in those days, it's like they've already recognised how absolutely terrible Bug was. Feels to me like they were trying to give it some leeway.
 
I think the imbalance could simply be a mistake coming from the reduction of 190 Pokemon to 151. Some of them can be explained through:

-Grimer, Koffing, Ekans and Zubat were Team Rocket Pokemon, apparently Poison was going to be the "evil" type.
-Oddish and Bellsprout were designed as version exclusives, so there had to be some similarities and differences between them.
-Nidoran M/F-They promote gender differences? Maybe the idea of a Pokemon that has completely different evolutions depending on its gender sounded interesting to them.I don't really know, but they take up 4% of that 21%.
 
IRL reasons
  1. Undeveloped world-building: I think Grass was considered to be synonymous with a jungle environment back then and not much else, and lots of jungle species are poisonous.
  2. As @Nicolas721 said, when GF was cutting the roster down to 151, they may have left out basically ever type but poison, since ...
  3. ... Poison was the primary villain type back then
In-universe reasons
  • Natural ecological shifts: I have heard it said before that the reason Gen I has so few Dragon and Dark Pokemon could be due to the danger that the sudden arrival of fairies at Mt. Moon presented to them. This could have decimated any Dragon or Dark pokemon in the region, encouraging them to either change type (Exeggutor, Rattata line) or face extinction outside of carefully controlled environments (Dratini line, which is only catchable in the Safari zone). However, this may have encouraged many Pokemon that weren't already Poison to become Poison type, or those that already were to become more abundant.
  • Man-made ecological shifts: A recurring theme in Pokemon is the effect humanity has on nature, and this is true in Kanto too; the residents of Vermillion are concerned about Grimer populations, and in Celadon several years later the water is so polluted you can only fish Grimer and other Poison types there. I would argue that Kanto's theme is technology, and human abuse of technology goes hand in hand with pollution.
 
I read a theory once that it was because Kanto's really polluted. So I sort of head canon that it's a side effect of the region quickly having cities developed and improper waste maintenance.

For example: Even though Celadon city is supposed to appear pretty with that nice fountain, having the nature themed grass gym, and being surrounded by trees... that body of water in the middle? It's polluted. You can fish up grimer (1%, the other 99% being magikarp with a SUPER ROD) and find koffing (again, 1% but the only other pokemon is psyduck or slowpoke depending on your game version) while surfing on the surface. By the time of heart gold and soul silver, the only pokemon you find while surfing in this area are Grimer (90%) and Muk (10%). ALso interesting the only pokemon found in this town outside of headbutting trees are magikarp which basically live ANYWHERE regardless of water type, and two pokemon known for having issues when it comes to their head what with Psyduck having constant headaches and slowpoke being... slowpoke.
 
The Bulbasaur line are technically toads so there's no reason they can't be Poison-type. Plus, toads can have venomous warts or something and don't need water to survive.

Gastly line could be made up of pollution. Let's say, Haunter is an acidic cloud, and Gengar? Would be a slimy substance or some industrial waste.
 
I also think that maybe, just maybe, it was because Poison was the least affected type when they decided to remove 40 of the original Pokémon. From what they have shown us, none of the cut Pokémon looked like it belonged to the Poison type, but then again, we have not seen everything, so I can be very, very wrong.
 
Please note: The thread is from 5 years ago.
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