Ereshkigal
Far too mouthy for my own good.
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 5,263
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The argument was never that these Pokemon are this species, just that they take inspiration from it. (Just like Lapras isn't a complete representation of the Loch Ness monster, or how the Pikachu line aren't exactly like mice) My apologies for misinterpreting you with time.
Was Dratini revealed before Lapras? If that's the case, I can see the reasoning behind this, but it seems like it'd be quite a stretch if it wasn't. And while Dratini does have a connection to water, it's not quite as shown off as Lapras's-its dex entries talk about it moving people across water, and that's shown quite often in the anime. (It gets quite the treatment with Surf, too-it was the Gen 2 sprite for surf, got a custom sprite for Surf in Gen 6, and the Poke Ride function for it in Gen 7-but, of course, that information wasn't there for Gen 1.)
I had removed the ending part of the sentence about time because it sounded snarky on re-reading. Hoofenmouth Syndrome is definitely acting up >.<
Well, my issue is that Lapras was clearly intended to be heavily based on Nessie, while Bulbasaur and Chikorita you really can't put a solid singular inspiration on. So it's a lot easier to judge typing for one, but with the other two we can barely narrow down even the plant basis, let alone if there's any animal basis. It doesn't help that plant types tend to not have an animal basis, leaving it further questionable whether Bulbasaur was inspired by a modern animal, an extinct animal, or even how the dirt might have clung to the roots of a plant after it was yanked from a pot (its skin hints toward the potting soil possibility in how it's patterned, while early sprites favored the toad interpretation in how it stood and leapt). Chikorita could be a basis of both animal and plant, or could be entirely based on the real-world plant made into an animal. Then again, it doesn't help that reading a lot of the dex entries makes it clear that Lapras is actually closer to a real-world dolphin than to its mythological basis, which makes me wonder if the Nessie base wasn't a later idea (they might have had trouble making a good dolphin sprite at the time).
Lapras and Dratini were both revealed at about the same time, and both under different names than they have now. Lapras was originally called Ness, while Dratini was originally called Dragoon. Typing wasn't revealed, IIRC, and Lapras had more teeth than it does now.