A bone to pick with cubone...(pun intended)

[Æsahættr]

We all know cubone wears it's mothers skull at birth, but I have a few queries about this. 1. What does it look like without the skull? 2. What happens if it's mother is not dead? 3. What kind of sadistic pokemon wears a skull (let alone it's mothers',) for a mask?

 

[Roses Ablaze]

2. I think its mother dies giving birth to it. There are a lot of animals IRL like that.
3. Maybe it's for commemoration?

 

[Mr kecleon]

If this is true...Shouldn't any cubone/marowak that lays the egg in the daycare die?
Oh wait, they don't die, they get knocked out foreever >.>
And if it dies in the daycare, surely it can't pull the skull through the egg while you're carrying it...
Mr K.

 

[Kthleen]

2. I think its mother dies giving birth to it. There are a lot of animals IRL like that.

But don't they usually have lots of babies? We would need to know if Marowak/Cubone lay one egg each time or lay them in clutches.

The first would pose a problem in that they would all need to be female if the population were to remain remotely stable, unless the males could change their sex. Also, if the mother did die upon birth, that would mean that any of the resulting offspring dying before laying an egg (or any of the offspring being male and unable to change to female) would permanently decrease the population, probably to an extinction quicker than creatures whose females usually live to make more babies.

The second would pose a problem to the "no one knows what Cubone look like without their skull helmets" thing unless they also get the skulls from other Pokémon (including dead Marowak/Cubone other than their mothers)... though that should have been solved a long time ago anyway, especially with the advent of cameras....

 

[FabuVinny]

If this is true...Shouldn't any cubone/marowak that lays the egg in the daycare die?
Oh wait, they don't die, they get knocked out foreever >.>
And if it dies in the daycare, surely it can't pull the skull through the egg while you're carrying it...
Mr K.

The games aren't the most realistic interpretation of the Pokémon World.

Has Pokémon Special ever addressed this?

 

[Jukain]

Nothing that I know of has ever explained Cubone. The anime once had Pikachu spin its helmet around, so that part of it at least is true. I don't think we will ever know the answer, it's just the design of the pokemon. Like how Diglett is always drawn as coming out of a hole in the ground, but we never see its body. Does Jynx have legs? What does Tangela's face look like? And many more. We will never know the answers, because they were just designed that way. They tried to make it seem more realistic by giving them real animal characteristics in the pokedex. Too many times have we looked too far into this text to try to explain pokemon as if they were real. It just can't be done, there are too many inconsistencies.

 

[Habunake]

Jynx has feet atleast, we saw them in the Showboat episode, so we can assume it has legs as well.

 

[GreatLiver]

I always wondered about the face of a Cubone. I would think it looks somewhat like it had a squirrel or other small rodent face. I just had an idea. Is there a chance that Cubone may have a pre-evolution this generation, which may be it before its mother's body decomposes which is where it gets its skull from.

 

[ImJessieTR]

But if you've noticed, a cubone skull covering looks nothing like a marowak's. Cubone's skull covering looks more like it came from the charmander line (and as often as they can die from exposure to water, this is entirely possible), while marowak's look like it came from the abra line. I think this species is related to a distant ancestor of charmander, and it, like many crabs in the sea and maybe other animals in rainforests or something, collect skulls for protection since their own skulls may not be suitable for cave or mountainous habitat -- or perhaps for mating ritual fighting. Humans, seeing these skulls without confirming the source of the skulls (since cubones apparently do not live extended periods with their parents), assumed that the skull came from the mother.

 

[paperfairy]

The games aren't the most realistic interpretation of the Pokémon World.

Has Pokémon Special ever addressed this?

No, but that's why I love PS - realistic.

And yeah, here is something to rattle everyone's brains.

Cubone comes out of its egg with a skull on its head.

 

[JulieArticuno]

Well, the other silly idea about the skull being that of Cubone's mother would be that it suggests Cubone/Marowak has one offspring and then dies out. Producing one offspring per pair of critters is NOT pro-survival.

Also, when you hatch one from an egg in Daycare, where does it get the skiull from?

JulieArticuni

 

[Another Fan]

Well, although I believe that games are god and should be the most trusted version of events. I also believe it is unrealistic if interpreted as presented in the games themselves. Makers can't be bothered to deal with these small little problems so they leave it to interpretation.

So, yes. My interpretation. Cubone, the lonely pokemon. The mother dies after birth, and although Red, Yellow, Blue implied poaching, I think it is safe to say that at this stage it isn't even a remotely realistic theory. Complications during labour is a decent theory in my opinion so I accept it.

Seeing as I am a romantic, I tend to want the lonely essense of cubone not to be lost when transfered to a more realistic version of the pokemon world. The pokemon still pines for its mother even though it happens after every single birth. It probably sees no flaw in carrying its mother's bones, its mother carries her mother's bones and so fourth, so it think it is safe to assume it thinks it is a way to be closer to his mother.

And then, once it accepts its mother's death fully, it trains, to protect others, through art it looks like the skull basically fused to its head. I am fine with the whole fusing skull thing, never been that strong of a realist anyway.

Then after finding a mate, a hard thing to do, another cubone is born. What happens to the father? Especially if it is a marowak, as a marowak is a guardian pokemon, and a guardian wouldn't just mate and run away from the baby, I would assume. Well, we could remove the mother bit and say that parents give birth to two and both parents die, but then cubone isn't as lonely seeing as it is with a sibling. This solves the whole, the female sex disappearing thing. But it also ruins the typical cheesy story that is every life of a cubone which I love very much so. So, I assume that the father has it a bit off on the instinct side of things and doesn't stay to witness the birth of the child.

Now, about the whole skull not looking like marowak's head. I call that design flaw. In Red and Blue, sprites were rather vague and open to interpretation so as it was around that time that the cubone line was created, perhaps the designer's did intend marowak to look like that of a skull of cubone. But I doubt that seeing as the anime didn't just make their own interpretations based on sprites, they most likely worked off art given to them specially. So, why does marowak's head look nothing like cubone's skull? Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying that it looks nothing like it, but yes, they do look rather dissimiliar. Still, however, I say it is just a simple and rather quirky desistion by the designer. Why? Well, I don't know. But I can safely say that my interpretation is that the skulls are in fact the same. My interpretation may not be perfectly in canon, but it suits my needs.

 

[Maverynthia]

What if the mother sheds it's skull like some animals shed bones and skin and stuff...

 

[Dark Fire]

Another thing to ponder is how the Cubone gets the skull in the first place. In real life it takes weeks before a dead animal's flesh is completely torn from it's bones. So the question is, if in fact a Cubone gets the skull from his mother, does he wait until the flesh is decayed? Does he himself tear away the flesh off of his mother's head? And if he waits for it to decay wouldn't there be sitings of Cubone without their masks?

 

[Another Fan]

Or he could just where it when it is covered in flesh?

 

[Dark Fire]

So he cuts off his mother's head, hollows out the insde of her skull and puts it on when it is still covered in blood, tissue, and skin. All of which are rotting onto his head.

Twisted xP

 

[sano72]

Mabey marowak and cubone are like praying mantises but instead of the male getting its head eatin the mother does and the father gets rid of the skin some how.

 

[Bozo]

We all know cubone wears it's mothers skull at birth, but I have a few queries about this. 1. What does it look like without the skull? 2. What happens if it's mother is not dead? 3. What kind of sadistic pokemon wears a skull (let alone it's mothers',) for a mask?

1. Who knows? No one has ever seen it, and probably never will. But perhaps... it has the same shape as a marrowaks (smaller) , the same color as its body, and made of skin.
2. Most likely, momy dies when baby is born. And they only give birth to one baby in a lifetime.
3. It probably wears it to "be part" of its mother. In fact, I think its quite cute, not to mention cool.
   

 

[Aiddat]

I like to try to solve plot holes in Star Wars, but it seems less important in Pokemon. Anyway, it seems to me that they take their mother's skull when she dies from giving birth. But how does it still fit them when they grow up? Can only marowak give birth, so their wierd fused skulls become their real skulls and so on? Then a cubone's skull would be like its ancestors' skull for generations. Get my point?

 

[Another Fan]

Yeah, I do. That is kind of neat.

But the thing with the skull being too small can be explained simply that the skull is very large on cubone.