House Jolteon: Harness the Storm
Pokémottos #135
Tag: jolteon
Jolteon
Of Eevee’s original three evolutions, Jolteon is the tough guy, the cool kid, the badass. He appeals to a very different kind of player and a very different style of play to Vaporeon, emphasising speed and power in both his design and his skills. This kind of variation on the basic form of the Eevee evolutions is part of Eevee’s strength – there’s something for everyone. In Jolteon’s case, if you need a blazing-fast special attacker with serious attitude, look no further.
Like most Electric Pokémon, Jolteon’s thing is that he can hurl massive blasts of lightning at people. He is often ill-tempered, prone to volatile swings of emotion, and his electrical charge builds rapidly when he is agitated. His power is drawn from a rather unlikely source – his fur. Jolteon’s fur is made up of innumerable rigid bristles that rub together to create static electricity as he moves, charging him up for electrical attacks. The bristles also help him defend himself – they’re sharp and stiff, and stand out from his body because of the static charge, like a porcupine’s quills. He can even launch bunches of them at his enemies to skewer them – an ability represented in-game by the sadly useless Pin Missile attack. As Electric Pokémon go, Jolteon is a little generic, although the static fur is a nice touch to explain the source of his power while giving him a touch of character and some interesting abilities. It’s just a shame those interesting abilities are so useless. I’m pretty sure there’s no serious reason ever to use Pin Missile, which is a shame because, like Vaporeon’s Acid Armour, it was almost a signature move once (shared only with Beedrill). Anyway, the really nice thing about Jolteon’s prickly fur is that the spiky starburst profile it gives him is pleasingly evocative of a jagged lightning bolt, or the crash of thunder – a neat way of working his element into the design without actually scribbling lightning bolts all over him. Overall, I’m not terribly excited about Jolteon’s visual design, but it’s appropriate, it works, and it plays to a very different aesthetic to Vaporeon’s – sinuous and dynamic, harsh rather than elegant.
I mentioned last time, in relation to Vaporeon, that one of Eevee’s alleged themes is adaptation to the environment – her plethora of evolved forms supposedly reflects the development of features to cope with or exploit particular aspects of a variety of habitats. It’s a fitting enough theme to build around Eevee, since she’s supposed to be inspired by the workings of real-world evolution, which is really all about adapting to different environmental conditions; some organisms work well in one habitat, some in another, but it’s meaningless to talk about one being ‘better’ or ‘more evolved’ than another – just like Eevee’s evolutions. The adaptation thing was written into the Pokédex in Gold and Silver, and probably wasn’t actually on the designers’ minds when they originally created Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon. This is probably why Jolteon and Flareon, quite clearly, aren’t associated with any specific habitat at all. I can’t blame them for this, naturally, but I can make some suggestions for fixing this and bringing them in line with what seems to be Eevee’s theme now. What kind of environment would suit Jolteon best? Well, he can run extremely quickly, so it would make sense if he were adapted for wide open spaces; that rules out forests, hills and mountains. Eevee and all of her evolutions sport long, broad ears which make me think of a jackrabbit or a fennec fox, who use their large ears to help dissipate excess heat and cope with life in desert climates; none of them (except, for obvious reasons, Glaceon) would look out of place in a tropical or subtropical climate, and Jolteon in particular, with his stiff, straight, bristly fur, doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned with heat retention. Perhaps most importantly, Jolteon’s primary means of attack, his lightning, is charged by the build-up of static electricity, which is much slower and weaker in humid conditions. Jolteon seems to be a Pokémon adapted for a hot, dry and relatively flat climate, somewhere like central Australia, or the Mojave desert in North America. Given that this is supposed to be a theme for Eevee, I’m going to look at all her other evolved forms in the same way when we come to them, and figure out which environments they seem to match. For now, though, let’s talk about Jolteon’s in-battle abilities.
Jolteon’s greatest asset, the thing that sets him apart, is his speed. Most Electric Pokémon are fast, but Jolteon is a blur of motion; in Red and Blue, he drew even with Mewtwo and Aerodactyl, outrun only by Electrode. Even today, only a few more Pokémon can claim to be faster: Accelgor, Ninjask, and Deoxys, with Crobat just managing to keep up with him. His excellent speed makes him rather good at sniping opposing Pokémon with his spectacular Thunderbolts, and also makes him one of the better choices for taking advantage of a rare move that all of Eevee’s evolutions have in common: Baton Pass. This has given Jolteon a nice little niche since Baton Pass was introduced in Gold and Silver, and remains one of his most useful skills today. He doesn’t have a whole lot of buffs to pass – Agility, Charge Beam, Substitute and maybe Work Up are pretty much the extent of it – but his Thunderbolts are frightening enough that he can usually get the free turn he needs to pull it off, and his absurd speed ensures that he doesn’t stay in play any longer than he absolutely has to. Jolteon’s main weakness is that, like most of his siblings, he suffers from a rather small offensive movepool, which is what keeps him from being a really top-class sweeper despite having perfect stats for it. Any Ground-type with halfway decent special defence will stop him in his tracks unless, heaven help you, you have time to breed a Jolteon with the right Hidden Power element (and even then it’s not exactly airtight; Swampert, Gastrodon and their ilk murder you if you pick Ice, Landorus and Gliscor if you pick Grass). If you’re going to rely mainly on a single attack type, though, Electric is one of the better ones to be stuck with, and, thanks to Platinum, Jolteon can learn Signal Beam and doesn’t have to worry about Grass-types either. Shadow Ball is Shadow Ball, but it helps with a few Pokémon, mainly Ghost-types and Ground-types. Jolteon is relatively frail, and shouldn’t be expected to take much abuse, especially not from physical attacks, but with a bit of judicious switching and Baton Passing to keep him out of harm’s way, you should be able to nail a good few Pokémon with some Thunderbolts.
This is basically the core of Jolteon’s skillset, but he has a few other moves worth mentioning. Volt Switch, Black and White’s great gift to Electric-types, lets a Pokémon attack and then immediately switch out, avoiding the opponent’s counterattack, and is especially effective on a fast Pokémon like Jolteon, but many Jolteon are likely to have Baton Pass anyway, and you don’t really need both; they serve a similar purpose. Fake Tears might be interesting – catch one of those big Ground-types switching in to wreck their special defence, and they might feel less confident about eating a Shadow Ball and have to switch right back out again. Jolteon learns Thunder Wave, but doesn’t benefit much from it since he outruns everything important already, and isn’t tough enough to pull team support duty. Wish, likewise, is an excellent move but ill-suited to Jolteon’s capabilities. The final nice thing about Jolteon is his ability, Volt Absorb. In much the same way as Vaporeon’s Water Absorb, Volt Absorb negates Electric attacks and converts their energy into health, healing Jolteon by 25% of his maximum HP every time he takes one. This is significantly less useful for Jolteon because, unlike Vaporeon, he can’t take many hits anyway and may not survive long enough to heal up, but it does still let him switch into Electric attacks with impunity, which is very useful for a frail attacker. His Dream World ability, Quick Feet, is interesting but ultimately not worth much. It gives him a speed boost whenever he’s paralysed or poisoned or what have you – but, being Jolteon, he’s already so fast that this isn’t likely to do much for him. The biggest advantage to it is that it negates the massive speed penalty connected with paralysis, which makes Jolteon all but useless. However, a Jolteon with Volt Absorb is immune to the most common and effective paralysing attack anyway (Thunder Wave) so in the end Quick Feet is a dubious choice.
As you may have gathered, what I like best about Jolteon is how very differently he handles compared to Vaporeon. This is another of those themes I’m going to keep harping on throughout this series, and will probably talk about in some detail in the final entry on Eevee, so keep it in mind. For now, I’ll just say that Jolteon works. He’s not really my style, but he’s a very fun Pokémon to use, and won’t disappoint you – and, you have to admit, he’s pretty badass.
Anime Time: Episodes 40 and 51
The Battling Eevee Brothers – Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden
Ash’s location: central Anatolia.
Evolution is one of my favourite themes. It’s apparently a very simple concept, but the way it’s treated in the anime has all kinds of fascinating implications that you can draw into an extremely complicated and morally nuanced vision of how this world works. As usual, much of what I have to say here is totally made up, but regular readers will know by now that I’ve never let that stop me before…
In the Battling Eevee Brothers, Ash, Misty and Brock find an Eevee tied to a tree in the woods with a bowl of food next to it. Brock suggests that the Eevee has been abandoned, at which Ash and Misty are horrified. They notice a gold tag on Eevee’s collar with an address engraved, in a place called Stone Town (at the foot of Evolution Mountain, claims Brock – three guesses what this episode’s going to be about…). Misty is tempted to keep Eevee, but they agree they should try to find Eevee’s owner first. Following Eevee’s tag leads them to an opulent manse with a spacious garden, where three triplets and their Pokémon – Rainer and his Vaporeon, Pyro and his Flareon, and Sparkyand his Jolteon – are hosting an evolution party, with free evolutionary stones for all comers. Eevee, who belongs to their younger brother Mikey, is the guest of honour; today is supposed to be the day he chooses his Eevee’s evolved form. Mikey himself is less than thrilled, and confides to Misty that he doesn’t care about battles, doesn’t actually want Eevee to evolve at all, and hid him in the woods to keep him out of sight, just until the party was over. Ash and Brock, meanwhile, argue with Rainer, Sparky and Pyro, who have offered them a Thunder Stone and a Fire Stone to evolve Pikachu and Vulpix. Team Rocket crash the party, have Weezing lay down some smog cover, and steal a dozen Pokémon, including Eevee and Misty’s Horsea, and as many evolution stones as they can carry before hightailing it out of there. Horsea, however, is clever enough to leave a trail of ink for the heroes to follow. While Jessie, James and Meowth are arguing over how to evolve Eevee (they eventually decide to use all three stones at once, just to see what happens) the good guys show up, and Vaporeon, Jolteon and Flareon give Arbok and Weezing a thrashing. Remarkably, though, Jessie and James manage to turn things around… until Mikey’s Eevee enters the fray and slams Arbok and Weezing with a powerful Take Down. As Misty had suggested, Mikey finally admits to his brothers that he’d rather just keep Eevee – and, after seeing what their brother’s Pokémon is capable of, they’re pretty cool with that.
Some weeks later, Ash’s Bulbasaur collapses, quivering, after winning a difficult battle against a hiker’s Rhyhorn, and his bulb starts glowing softly. Ash rushes him to a Pokémon Centre, where Nurse Joy #292 concludes that there’s nothing wrong with Bulbasaur at all: he’s preparing to evolve. It’ll soon be time for him to journey to a place called the Mysterious Garden, a semi-mythical grove where Bulbasaur gather every year to evolve into Ivysaur. Ash is overjoyed. That night, Bulbasaur slips out of the Pokémon Centre to brood. Pikachu follows him, and they talk for a while (Pikachu seems to be comforting him, and offering support). Without warning, a gang of wild Bulbasaur seize Ash’s Bulbasaur with their Vine Whips and carry him off. Pikachu runs to fetch Ash and the others, and together they track the Bulbasaur through the forest, even as the plants themselves try to keep them from following. They narrowly manage to slip through a solid wall of vines as it knits itself together, and find themselves in the Mysterious Garden. They see hundreds of Bulbasaur in the valley below them, singing, as the plants around them grow and blossom in moments. An ancient Venusaur emerges from within an enormous hollow tree in the centre of the valley and roars. The Bulbasaur roar in response, and all begin to evolve… except for Ash’s Bulbasaur, who seems to be struggling not to. Venusaur is furious, and Ash runs to Bulbasaur’s side to block a Vine Whip. Ash apologises to Bulbasaur for getting so excited about his evolution without considering his feelings, and tries to convince Venusaur that he shouldn’t be forced to evolve. Venusaur responds by demonstrating his miraculous abilities, causing a bare cherry tree to burst into bloom, and Misty wonders “don’t you want to have that kind of power, Bulbasaur?” As they argue, Team Rocket once again crash the party, floating over the wall of vines in their balloon and sucking up as many Ivysaur as they can with one of their ridiculous vacuum devices. The situation looks dire… until the sun rises. With a tremendous battle cry, Bulbasaur blasts Team Rocket with his first Solarbeam. The balloon is destroyed, the Ivysaur fall back to earth, and Venusaur finds it in his heart to forgive Bulbasaur for disrupting the ritual. Bulbasaur leaves with the kids as the wall of vines shrinks away, and they realise why no-one has ever been able to find the Mysterious Garden: once the ceremony ends, it simply ceases to exist.
Let’s look at some quotes from Eevee Brothers. The conversation Ash and Brock have with Rainer, Sparky and Pyro makes it plain as day that their views on evolution, particularly on induced evolution, are wildly different to the brothers’. Ash is asked “one of these days you’ll turn that Pikachu into a Raichu, won’t you?” in a very matter-of-fact tone, to which Pikachu reacts with obvious worry. The brothers also ask Brock “why don’t you just make [Vulpix] evolve?” as though it would be the easiest thing in the world – and, well, they’re offering him a free Fire Stone, so why not? After all, “evolution is what Pokémon are all about!” If you’ve been playing the games, this makes a lot of sense. If there’s a move you want your Pokémon to learn, you might hold off on evolution until it’s learnt it, because most Pokémon stop learning new attacks after using stones. In the long term, though, there’s no downside. If you mean to use a Pokémon for fighting, you will eventually evolve it, no ifs, no buts. That’s not how Ash and Brock see it. Ash tells the brothers, somewhat defensively, “we just don’t evolve our Pokémon that way,” while Brock says firmly “you like your way of evolving and we like ours.” You can read this either as making sense or as being utter bullshit. Personally I would rather read it as making sense but, y’know, to each his own. It makes sense when you think about what actually happens when Pokémon evolve; their physical bodies grow and change their proportions, sometimes drastically, and their mental state often undergoes a profound shift as well. Normally in the anime this seems to have some kind of psychological trigger; Pokémon evolve when they’re ready for it, and sometimes seem to be able to forestall evolution on their own – but when a trainer uses a stone, the Pokémon simply evolves on the spot, without any choice in the matter. It’s not really unreasonable for Ash and Brock to think that using these things is a little bit morally questionable, especially if it’s done for the sole aim of making the Pokémon in question better at battling.
Where the argument breaks down – and where Ash and Brock’s position starts to make less sense – is that, for Pokémon like Pikachu and Vulpix, there is no other way to reach their final forms. If Ash and Pikachu aren’t willing to use a Thunder Stone, Pikachu’s never going to become a Raichu; no two ways about it. Brock’s statement suggests that he believes there is some other way for Pikachu and Vulpix to evolve, but if so, no-one ever hints at what that might be. Moreover, Ash’s statement suggests that refusing to use the Thunder Stone Sparky offers him is not simply a matter of waiting for the right time; he has absolutely no intention of evolving Pikachu at all, now, later, or ever. Surely Pokémon are supposed to reach their final forms eventually? Why else would they even have them? On the other hand, clearly evolution isn’t actually necessary for Pikachu to become an ‘adult’ since, as we just saw in Pikachu’s Goodbye, a community of wild Pikachu can get along just fine without a single Raichu. Obviously they’re capable of surviving without the protection of their more powerful cousins, and presumably they also reach reproductive maturity without any hiccups (indeed, if we can trust the games, there are very few Pokémon that do need to evolve before they can reproduce – only the ‘babies,’ such as Elekid and Bonsly). My newest pet theory on this is that Pikachu’s ability to evolve into Raichu is actually vestigial. At some point in the history of their development, for one reason or another, they stopped needing to evolve (maybe Pikachu fill an ecological niche that Raichu are less suited to, or maybe some kind of Ground-type predator made speed and small size more valuable than greater electrical power). They still have all the genes they need to become Raichu, but they’ve lost the genes that tell them when and why to evolve, so unless they’re triggered by some outside influence, they just don’t. Basically, what I’m suggesting is that Pokémon like Raichu, Ninetales and Poliwrath are throwbacks – forms that have become extinct in the wild, because they’re no longer suited to a changing ecosystem, but can be recreated via human intervention. That definitely leaves Ash and Brock plenty of room to feel a little bit uncomfortable about evolutionary stones, especially if the Pokémon have no choice in whether to use them.
The degree of choice Pokémon have in when they evolve is another tricky question that the anime implies things about, but rarely explains outright. Most of the evolutions we’ve seen in the series so far have happened at moments of high emotion; it’s often implied that they’re triggered by strong desire or need – most notably, Ekans and Koffing evolving in Dig Those Diglett, in response to their trainers’ uncharacteristic outbursts of affection. Bulbasaur, it seems, are very different. They have little freedom to decide; evolution, for them, is an extremely ritualistic thing that all of them go through together – to the point that, when Ash’s Bulbasaur decides he doesn’t want to evolve, he provokes the outrage of the entire community. That isn’t merely because his refusal somehow disrupted the ceremony either. The scene between Bulbasaur and Pikachu is a little tricky to interpret because, y’know, they don’t speak, but I’m pretty sure that Bulbasaur is explaining to Pikachu that he doesn’t think he really wants to evolve yet, but doesn’t want to disappoint Ash either, and Pikachu is telling him that it’s okay and Ash will be cool with it. The other Bulbasaur who overhear the conversation are apparently so discomforted by the whole idea that they immediately kidnap him and drag him to the Mysterious Garden. Venusaur isn’t just upset about the ritual; he and all the Ivysaur are actually somehow offended that Bulbasaur doesn’t want to evolve. For them, it’s the most natural thing in the world, the way they attain the powers that are their birthright, and trying to deny it is just asking for trouble. Of course, if that’s how they do things, where the hell does Ash get off trying to stop them? Or, conversely, if we do let the Bulbasaur get on with their strictly enforced mass evolution ceremonies in peace, what kind of ground are we standing on if we say that Mikey’s Eevee shouldn’t be forced to evolve?
I could go on, you understand. It’s just that this entry is clearly getting far too long.
Pokémaniacal 