Have you considered that Ribombee’s Fairy Typing might be influenced by how you can connect bee flies’ reproductive habits with the trope of the Changeling (a fairy left in the place of a kidnapped human baby)?
Mmm, I’m not sure I see it, for three reasons. One, nothing about Ribombee really seems like a reference to parasitism; it’s not an idea that the design or the flavour text or Ribombee’s mechanical abilities seem to be evoking. Two, Cutiefly and Ribombee’s dainty, gossamer-winged physical appearance already gives us a pretty clear reason for them to be Fairy-types; we don’t need an explanation for that. And three… well, I think there are better animal kingdom metaphors for changelings – namely brood parasitism, like what cuckoos do; they actually slip their eggs into the nests of other birds to trick them into raising the cuckoos’ chicks. Personally, that’s where I’d go if I wanted to play with changeling mythology. I suppose I don’t think it’s impossible that Ribombee is doing something along these lines, but I’m not convinced.
Yeah, they would have saved it for Galar if that was their intent.
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I feel like the design itself doesn’t look off for a parasitic changeling trope- sure, it doesn’t have any direct manifestations of that, but how would you even show it? Besides, it’s pretty much just a stylization of a real bee fly.
What really bothers me about the theory that those mons are parasitic in any way is their lore and gameplay.
I mean, that would be the sort of thing the pokédex would love to gush about, Yet, in three games, totaling twelve dex entries for the line, all the lore ever mentions is how friendly and magical they are, and how they love to feed on nectar and pollen. There’s even mention of interspecies relationships, with scuffles with butterfree and gossifleur for food- but not even an implication that they often show near hives or nests of other pokémon.
And then, there’s the way that they have the honey gather ability, which implies they’re actual bees instead of mimics, and how their native region has no other bee pokémon for them to parasitize. Their most emblematic appearances are in the meadows of alola, where there’s no combee or beedrill to be seen- what would they parasitize?
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