Cubone

[Typhlosion In Repose]

There are tons and tons of pokemon, but none creep me out so much as cubone. I find it very strange how its pokedex changes.

R/B: Because it never removes its skull helmet, no one has seen its true face.

Y:Wears the skull of its deceased mother. Its cries echo inside the scull and come out as a sad melody.

Crystal: It lost its mother after birth. It wears its mother's skull, never revealing its true face.

R/S: Cubone pines for the mother it will never see again. Seeing a likeness of its mother in the full moon, it cries. The stains on the skull the pokemon wears are made by the tears it sheds.

Its original entry says nothing about the skull belonging to its deceased mother. I believe that gamefreak added that in yellow due to the fact that Team rocket killed Marowak.

Marowak is another story. In the story, it is the mother of a cubone. The cubone was obviously with its mother for a while before she got killed. The crystal pokedex says that it lost it's mother after birth. Does it not wait for its mother to decompose to get the skull? Does it get the skull that has been passed down through generations? A male cubone would break such a chain, as it will never give its skull.

The skull cubone wears looks nothing like marowak's head. That is assuming that marowak is too wearing a skull, and that the bone substance on it's head is not skin. If it is a skull, some what of an exoskeleton, then that would not make sense, unless cubone takes its club to the skull before it wears it.

And why does it lose its mother after birth? Is there some genetic flaw in the cubone family that causes the mother to die at birth?

The bone that cubone and marowak hold seem to come from a marowak graveyard eluded to in the silver and crystal entries for said pokemon.

I don't know. Cubone is a very strange pokemon. Any comments?

 

[vee2x_paradox]

Emerald - It pines for the mother it will never see again. Seeing a likeness of its mother in the full moon, it cries. The stains on the skull it wears are from its tears.

FR - It wears the skull of its dead mother on its head. When it becomes lonesome, it is said to cry loudly.

LG - Because it never removes its skull helmet, no one has ever seen this Pokémon's real face.

D/P - When it thinks of its dead mother, it cries. Its crying makes the skull it wears rattle hollowly.

---

Maybe the "mother" refers to a clan leader, or matriarch? There could be more than one in each Cubone/Marowak tribe and the skulls of these gets passed down generation to generation of the groups. And when it evolves the skull somehow molds into their head? And yet they get simultaneously replaced in the nick of time for the next newborns?

Really, no clue what I'm saying.

But yeah, Cubone's entries are just masses of tragedy.

 

[Dual]

Lawlz. Cubone is the Emo Kid of the Pokemon world.

 

[McClennan]

The skull cubone wears looks nothing like marowak's head. That is assuming that marowak is too wearing a skull, and that the bone substance on it's head is not skin. If it is a skull, some what of an exoskeleton, then that would not make sense, unless cubone takes its club to the skull before it wears it.

If the thing on Marowak's head is a helmet, then we don't actually know what a Marowak's real skull looks like.

It's a shame that none of the Pokédex entries actually explain whether it's Marowak's head, a helmet or whatever.

But yeah, Cubone's story is definately one of the saddest sub-plots in any of the games. It doesn't really creep me out, I just feel sorry for it.

 

[Typhlosion In Repose]

If the thing on Marowak's head is a helmet, then we don't actually know what a Marowak's real skull looks like.

It's a shame that none of the Pokédex entries actually explain whether it's Marowak's head, a helmet or whatever.

But yeah, Cubone's story is definately one of the saddest sub-plots in any of the games. It doesn't really creep me out, I just feel sorry for it.

The fact that it wears its mother's skull doesn't creep you out?

 

[Delete This Account]

It never says in any Pokedex entry that the skull is part of the mothers body. The skull could just be an heirloom or something that belonged to the mother, which she passed down to the Cubone before she died.

And the Cubone, in evolution, no longer wears the skull, and the evolved Marowak's head is the colour of the skull that it wore as a cubone.

 

[Dual]

It never says in any Pokedex entry that the skull is part of the mothers body. The skull could just be an heirloom or something that belonged to the mother, which she passed down to the Cubone before she died.

Marowak's Pokedex entries do not make any reference to it wearing a skull helmet, so I think it's safe to assume that that's not the case. (The entries do make note of it using bones as a weapon, but not as armor.)

 

[McClennan]

The fact that it wears its mother's skull doesn't creep you out?

Ok, perhaps a bit, but it doesn't seem that much different from cases of children who lose a parent wearing clothes that the parent owned and refusing to take them off.

Just a bit more to the extreme. Well, a lot more extreme.

EDIT:

It never says in any Pokedex entry that the skull is part of the mothers body. The skull could just be an heirloom or something that belonged to the mother, which she passed down to the Cubone before she died.

That could be true, considering the Pokédex entries for Marowak seem to hint at them having a tribal, cavemanesque society, but I always assumed that "the skull of it's deceased mother" would be more likely to be the skull that the mother had inside her head when she was alive.

 

[Masterkraft]

I always considered the head of a Marowak to be the skull itself, fusing with it's own face almost, as we don't see the flesh underneath the eye holes like we do on a Cubone.
It's safe to assume that the Cubone/Marowak/other pokemon (as previosuly stated, it's not clear whether it's actually the mother's actualy skull, rather a trophy) must be bigger than the Cubone itself to be worn as a helmet. Does anyone know of any pokemon who's head looks similar to the skull, bar Cubone?

 

[McClennan]

Does anyone know of any pokemon who's head looks similar to the skull, bar Cubone?

Well, I looked at generation 1 pokémon (I'm assuming the skull isn't likely to belong to a newer pokémon, although that I could be wrong), and apart from Marowak, I thought the skull could've belonged to possibly a sandslash, tauros, charmeleon, nidorana/nidorino ninetales, kadabra or a ponyta, but it seems unlikely that a family of Cubone/Marowak could've come into contact with a few of those.

 

[Perxio]

Does anyone know of any pokemon who's head looks similar to the skull, bar Cubone?

I thought I read somewhere that Cubone's skull helmet was pitched to be the skull of an Aerodactyl...the skull looks similar to the head of one at least, perhaps if the horns were longer.

 

[The Outrage]

Emerald - It pines for the mother it will never see again. Seeing a likeness of its mother in the full moon, it cries. The stains on the skull it wears are from its tears.

FR - It wears the skull of its dead mother on its head. When it becomes lonesome, it is said to cry loudly.

LG - Because it never removes its skull helmet, no one has ever seen this Pokémon's real face.

D/P - When it thinks of its dead mother, it cries. Its crying makes the skull it wears rattle hollowly.

---

Maybe the "mother" refers to a clan leader, or matriarch? There could be more than one in each Cubone/Marowak tribe and the skulls of these gets passed down generation to generation of the groups. And when it evolves the skull somehow molds into their head? And yet they get simultaneously replaced in the nick of time for the next newborns?

Really, no clue what I'm saying.

But yeah, Cubone's entries are just masses of tragedy.

I highly doubt that it was the skull of the previous matriarchs. Cubone would be an extinct species if it only gave birth according to the number of skulls they had.

 

[venusaur-carnivine-trap]

What i think

Yeah i heard about the aerodactyl.
Here is my idea.
Along time ago Marowaks didn't have skulls. They found skulls of extinct Pokemon and wore 'em.They were passed on to their children for generations.They eventually fused on to their head. Now there genes make birth children take the mothers skull when they die,and allow hatched ones to create their own,Starting new lines of skulls.

And there it is!

P.S. what if one marowak had twins?

 

[Perxio]

P.S. what if one marowak had twins?

I think the ghost of the mother Marowak in RB(Y?) had multiple offspring. I don't know what they'd do outside of something even more morbid, like the young committing siblicide and whatnot.

 

[The Outrage]

I always just assumed that Cubone's head was a boney outgrowth, but now I believe it to be an exoskeleton. This would make perfect sense when Marowaks decompose, the exoskeletal head goes with it leaving it head less, and the exoskull on Cubone would be thought by many as the head of the deceased mother.

Upon evolution, the exoskull will fuse tightly with the head giving the newly evolved Marowak even more protection.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I always chalked it up to how the anime explained things like that in the dex--Westwood made it up.

 

[Torgetsu Kon]

Wether or not that Cubone wears a skull, i think he's cute

 

[professer_prof]

Heres my theory:
Cubone originally did not wear skulls or have bones for weapons but were serious hunters when hunting, but objects carried a lot of memory to them and died when they gave birth. They would hunt down prey until they ripped the flesh off of its bone, but leave the bones because they brought back horrible feelings from the hunt (anger, rage etc.). One day the chief of the tribe, which was a female, went on a hunt. The mother wore down the enemy to the point where a bone came out of the body and the mother was out of energy and couldn't finish it off and used her last strenghth to give birth. In a stroke of genius the child picked a up the bone and attacked with it and killed it. It kept the skull of the defeated to remind it of pride. Then on another hunt the child was arrogant and because of that another Cubone. The child was banned from the tribe and kept the bone and skull. One day it overcame these feelings and put the skull on and evolved into the first Marowak, the skull fused to its head to keep the pride and a reminder it overcame. It went back to the tribe they were amazed and made it a tradition for mothers to leavee hunted skulls to children, before its birth and its childs death.

And remember keep it scientific.

 

[McClennan]

Heres my theory:
Cubone originally did not wear skulls or have bones for weapons but were serious hunters when hunting, but objects carried a lot of memory to them and died when they gave birth. They would hunt down prey until they ripped the flesh off of its bone, but leave the bones because they brought back horrible feelings from the hunt (anger, rage etc.). One day the chief of the tribe, which was a female, went on a hunt.

The problem with that theory is that the Pokédex says that Marowak (and presumably cubone also) were small and weak before they started to use bones as tools and weapons, and that they only became ferocious afterwards.

 

[professer_prof]

The problem with that theory is that the Pokédex says that Marowak (and presumably cubone also) were small and weak before they started to use bones as tools and weapons, and that they only became ferocious afterwards.

I apologize, but do you have anything better to replace that part of the theory. I seriously have no idea on how to change it.