K asks:

What do you think is up w/ types and “life energy” these days? Like, if you had to sum up what your theory is on Dragon, Psychic, and Fairy types and how those relate to the nebulous concept of “life energy” in Pokemon?

y’see

y’know what, I may as well revisit this one, yeah

listen, for the record, I’m about to go way too into depth about this $#!t because I’ve tried to answer this before and I change my mind practically every time there’s a new Pokémon game, and I am chronically incapable of addressing a problem without recapping everything I’ve ever thought about it. Really what I should do is research it properly and actually write up A Big Long Thing, but that sounds hard so I’m not going to. If you read on you have only yourself to blame.

What I always went back to was this line, originally from Gold and Silver, where one of the gym trainers at Clair’s gym in Blackthorn City describes Dragon Pokémon as “Pokémon that are overflowing with life energy” (or something like that; I’m quoting from memory). In that original context, it seems like this is an explanation for how Dragon-with-a-capital-D Pokémon – at the time a very exclusive club, consisting of only Dratini, Dragonair, Dragonite and Kingdra – are different from Pokémon that are dragons, like Charizard and Gyarados. Dratini and Dragonair are kinda the emblematic Dragon Pokémon at that point, and they have this snakelike ability to shed their skin and “rejuvenate” themselves (which is exactly why snakes are often linked with immortality in real-world mythology). My mind also always goes to the Victini and Reshiram/Zekrom movie(s), where the plot revolves around a character’s attempts to manipulate something called the “Dragon Force,” an underground stream of life energy that has some vague connection to the legendary Dragon Pokémon of Unova. Similarly, in Jewel of Life, Arceus creates the titular jewel, which has the power to invigorate living things and restore damaged ecosystems, from its plates that correspond to the elements of Water and Ground (basic necessities of life), Grass (the foundational life represented by plants), Electric (a “spark” to get things started) and Dragon (because… y’know, you can’t have life without dragons?). Legendary Dragon Pokémon are prominent in the lore of generations III-V and often seem to have those big “cosmic keystone” roles. So it sounds like Dragon Pokémon are special precisely because they have this unique connection to some kind of abstract universal “life force” that other Pokémon obviously need (because… y’know, they’re alive) but aren’t directly linked to.

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hoennian asks:

uh oh so [SWSH spoilers fwiw)

galarian ponyta just got Officially Announced and it’s described as having been “exposed to the overflowing life energy of the forest over many generations, and this is why their appearance became unique in this region”
buuuuuut

it’s a psychic type

does this do anything to or for your Fairy-is-life-energy theories? or does it still also just kinda feed into “typing is nonsense”?

While we’re here, this will also serve as my answer to the question from another reader who gives their name simply as “Getting Shield!!!”:

Galarian Ponyta, thoughts?

So… I think it’s fine. Unicorns are an emblem of Scotland, so it certainly fits Galar as a Pokémon inspired by the culture and history of Great Britain. It’s quite pretty. It’s a point in favour of a prediction made by my esteemed PokéJungle colleague Jon that suggests we can guess which Pokémon are getting Galarian forms on the basis of new egg moves given out in Ultra Sun and Moon, so that’s quite nice if you’re interested in the prediction game. Psychic is a weird type to choose, in my opinion, for something as obviously “fairytale” as a unicorn – back in the X and Y era, Jim the Editor and I actually thought it was a bit weird that the base Kantonian Ponyta and Rapidash hadn’t been promoted to Fire/Fairy, because it would have made perfect sense and produced an interesting unique dual-type. But that brings us to…

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Chris the Pokemaniac asks:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonconspiracies/comments/999sk8/claydols_originsthe_first_alolans/
I think you’d like this one

Wait, wait, you- no, no, hang on, no, I’m Chris the Pokémaniac, that’s me! You’re not me!

…unless you’re… me from the future…? In which case you’re enacting the Sarpedon Contingency and you’re here to kill me… or you’ve promised your own soul to an eldritch entity from beyond the Seventh Veil and you’re here to kill me… or you’re from an alternate timeline that doesn’t have my recipe for sour cherry cheesecake and you’re here to kill me.

Well, whichever one it is, I guess I’d better answer the question.

“Hi, this a continuation of my theory Pokemon Cults, Infinite Energy and how it shaped the Pokemon World.”

Ohhhhh boy, this again.

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Anonymous asks:

It fascinates me that Leech Life being buffed so much in S/M has led to Absorb taking its place on the movesets of a whole lot of Pokemon, even those who have no other Grass powers or have ever had any previously. Obviously this is for game balance, but do you think we could take it to argue that LL and Absorb (and maybe Mega/Giga Drain?) work on similar mechanics, thematically speaking?

Honestly I kinda would have assumed that even before generation VII. How any Pokémon move works is super vague, and a lot of them probably don’t work the same way for all Pokémon, but both of these moves are doing something that somehow takes the target’s “life force,” whether that’s by sucking blood, or attaching roots like a Leech Seed, or just magic bull$#!t.