The Regis: A Theory of their Origins...

[StellarWind]

I can't believe I put so much thought into three PokeMon I despise as much as I despise the Regis, but the thought was sparked by Emerald, where one of the Frontier 'Brains', the Pyramid King, is reported to use the three Regis.

Hold it. Regis are supposed to be legendary, right? One-time PokeMon only? So, how the blazes?

And that's when I started thinking... It could be that the Regis the Pyramid King posesses are not the original Regis.

I trust that most of you are familiar with the story of the Golem of Prague, but let me refresh your memory, just in case.

The story spoke of a Rabbi who, using a ritual of writing a word with a Cabbalistic significance upon a humanoid body made of clay (or river mud, close enough), has thus created a Golem - Animate out of Inanimate. A creature which was mostly impervious to damage, as long as the word on its forehead remained intact. All it would have taken for the Golem to be killed was to have that writing changed in a certain way, And the Golem would dry up and crumble to dust.

The version I'm particularily fond of claims that the word was originally 'Emet', which is the Hebrew word for 'Truth' and is also a refrence to God's 'true' name (there are multiple instances, for example, referring to the place souls go to after their host body dies as 'Olam Ha'Emet', which literally translates into 'The World of Truth'). By the same token, to kill the Golem, the word needed to have the first letter removed, resulting in the word 'Met', which means 'Dead'.

Okay. What's the connection? Here goes.

My speculation about the Regis is that, like the Golem, they were made and brought to life by man. However, as the Regis are meant to be Avatars of their elements (their names literally crown them as the Monarchs of Rock, Ice and Steel), I believe the patterns of dots engraved (or embedded, or whatever) on their bodies are the symbols, in an ancient mystical language, of their elements (hence the differences in the symbols, rather than one universal 'word'). As long as these symbols are intact, the Regis cannot 'die' even if severe structural damage occurs (Regirock, for example, constantly sheds off rocks and reassembles its body from new rocks it finds as it goes along) - That is because they aren't truly alive. They are animated statues, inanimate brought to life via some kind of mystical energy.

Why were they sealed off is anyone's guess. Maybe they were getting too powerful and unruly for humanity to dominate? Maybe the civilization which used them and their likes was dying out and wanted to take the secrets of creating elemental golems with them to their grave? Or maybe they were hidden away in order to preserve them while others of their kind were being hunted down? The answer may be any or none of these. The truth (or at least the official one) shall probably never be known.

Still, I wonder if the Pyramid King hasn't found the way to re-enact these ancient rituals and created his own three elemental Golems for use in the Battle Frontier...

Curious, is it not? ^_^;

 

[pkmn Trainer Zach]

Fascinating. I've never put much thought into it, but it really makes sense. I'd write more, but I'm in first hour class, trying not to get caught on the internet. lol

 

[Fuoorin]

Well I have a theory that supports a story read long time ago(a story where Jirachi is the creator of the pokemon world and Deoxys was the threat that came from the skies). According to it, Deoxys created the three Regis to protect him before he was sealed off in his eternal sleeping chamber(at the moment, i cannot remember why he did that) and that could be a strong reason why the legendary trio have an alien-shaped form.

As for Brandon, well, him having the Regis in the game is not quite something out of common, as long as these three legendaries do not appear in the series.
And as for the summoning Regis process, remember movie 6? There it used to be this process simulated on a Groudon, but it failed. It is possible that, in time, the researchers(Brandon and co.) of the pokemon world could have found a solution to the failure made by Butler in that scene and make perfect clones of the Regis , and, afterwards, use them in battles in the Battle Pyramid.

 

[FabuVinny]

Brandon also has the legendary birds. That may be a dead end, but it led to a very plausable theory.

However, are the patterns that hard to decifer? This is what they look like:

H+O

So it could be more simple than you think. However, what that means is still not clear: Hot? Ho-oh? Hydrogen Monoxide? Hello?

Actually, now I think of it this may require knowledge of Japanese. ^^

 

[StellarWind]

Actually the symbols appear to be completely and utterly meaningless, no matter how you look at them... Hence my theory that they symbolize the elements of the Earth, Ice and Metal in some ancient dead language.

As for Brandon having the legendary birds - It's plausible to me because the legendary birds, to me, aren't a one-off species. They're just incredibly rare. I'm supposing that the Shamouti Island Region ones are simply more powerful members of their kind, and their sensitive locations have a direct balancing effect on the area - so if the balance between the birds is whacked, so is the balance between the elements in the area which leads to water currents that screw up the global climate. (shrugs)

 

[Serge165]

Rather interesting, it sounds like the backstory I wrote about the Unown from the 3rd movie, the whole bit that they were sealed away. In my backstory about the Unown, they were sealed off because they fed on animate imagination, and the people of the country they occupied had become part of their animus...

 

[ImJessieTR]

I always thought the symbols reflected the braille puzzles needed to unlock them.

 

[Doctor Oak]

They aren't braille letters though.

 

[ImJessieTR]

No, I know that. I'm just suggesting that they are suggestive. Maybe it's braille for whatever civilization locked them away?

 

[Yame~TeraDyne]

That's possible. Being the son of a blind woman tends to let me into some very strange insights, but here it goes...

Just because our braille alphabet consists of a 2hx3w grid doesn't mean that another version couldn't have a larger grid or other shape. For all we know, there may be 4 or more variations of braille in the Pokemon world, used by different reigons or by different tribes in the past.

From the differences in each of their shapes, the regis might have been made by different tribes, using their own variation of braille. Examples:

Regirock looks like it has a 3hx3w grid. It's symbol consists of dots 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9.

Regice looks like it has a 3hx5w grid. It's symbol uses dots 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 14.

Registeel looks like it uses a 3hx5w grid as well. It's symbol is made from dots 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14.

From the looks of things, they mostly used a 3hx5w grid, with the exception being regirock. However, there is enough room on it's face to allow for a 3hx5w gird as well, meaning it's possibily using dots 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12.

Just thought I'd throw that out.

 

[ImJessieTR]

exactly.

the ancient languages we have seen on the anime look like (at various times) cuneiform, hieroglyphs, etc. to encode what could be very complicated symbols, you'd need more dots and a bigger grid, like Yame said.

 

[Sneasel12]

Referring to the why they were locked away thing, it says in braille in one of the chambers, that they became too powerful and unruly. Also, it says that they were in fact created by humans.

 

[FabuVinny]

Full translation:

In this cave we have lived.
We owe all to the Pokémon.
But, we sealed the Pokémon away.
We feared it.
Those with courage, those with hope.
Open the door. An eternal Pokémon awakes.
First comes Relicanth.
Last comes Wailord.

 

[SnoringFrog]

Interesting. All of this sounds thesible to me.