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Pokemon "species" and Pokemon types?

unownzone

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So I've been debating about this on facebook groups for the last few days and I think it's an important topic to discuss.

[In this thread, we'll be following this rule. "What a Pokemon is", is going to be called "species"]
ex) "What is Raikou" --> "What species is Raikou" "It's a saber tooth tiger"

(The real answer to "What is Raikou" is "It's a Pokemon," but we all know that so we'll be using the word "species" to refer to what creature in our world the Pokemon's design is based on)

Apparently a lot of fans think Pokemon types define the Pokemon's species.
for example,
  • Altaria is a dragon because it's a dragon type
  • Charizard is not a dragon because it's not a dragon type
  • Fire, ground or rock type Pokemon would die if they get hit by water
  • Pokemon are weak to their weakness type moves, so why not?

Myself, and probably a few other Pokemon fans believe Pokemon types are just types. Pokemon species should be determined by appearance, behavior and category.
Thus believing
  • Some dragon type Pokemon are not dragons, like Altaria, Goomy and Exeggutor
  • Some Pokemon are dragons, but aren't dragon type, like charizard
  • Some Pokemon are dragon type because they are dragons, like dragonite and druddigon
  • Fire, ground or rock type Pokemon do not die if they get hit by water because they are life forms, which all need water to survive.
  • Pokemon weaknesses only apply to moves and Pokemon battling.

So which one do you believe?
[Pokemon species are determined by their type] or [Pokemon types and Pokemon species are totally different]
 

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I think that "Pokémon types and Pokémon species are totally different" and the perfect example is Charizard :yesyes: he looks like a dragon but isn't a dragon type :yesyes: (in the anime Iris mistook him for a dragon type and was surprised when Ash told her that it was a Fire/Flying type).
But at the same time I think that sometimes the type can influence the life of a Pokémon :yesyes: for example if Charmander (and evo) is hit with water on the tail they can die. And another perfect example of this is when Ash first catch Charmander, he try to protect his flame on the tail or he will die. But at the same time this weaknesses only apply to battling because in the first season a Sandshrew overcome his weakness to water with training and in the games a Rhydon can learn surf (and it's a Ground/Rock type)
 

unownzone

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So I've been thinking about this topic for some time and faced a problem.

Because fire type Pokemon are creatures, I thought they could still be harmed by fire. After all, they take damage from fire type moves, so they would obviously be injured by real fire right?
The problem here is, there are a lot of Pokemon that have fire on their body parts, like the charmander line, chimchar line and several others.
If that body fire is real fire, are they immune to flames altogether?
Or perhaps that fire isn't real fire, but something like a nonstop release of energy that just have fire-like properties.

Nevertheless, I am confused by this idea haha
 

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So I've been thinking about this topic for some time and faced a problem.

Because fire type Pokemon are creatures, I thought they could still be harmed by fire. After all, they take damage from fire type moves, so they would obviously be injured by real fire right?
The problem here is, there are a lot of Pokemon that have fire on their body parts, like the charmander line, chimchar line and several others.
If that body fire is real fire, are they immune to flames altogether?
Or perhaps that fire isn't real fire, but something like a nonstop release of energy that just have fire-like properties.

Nevertheless, I am confused by this idea haha
This is interesting :yesyes: maybe it's something like this:
- the flames that Pokémon use in battle is special so can hurt other Pokémon of the same type
- the flames of their own body isn't dangerous for them but the fire of other things is dangerous :yesyes:
and the second one can explain why we haven't see (in the anime) someone that drink water made by a Pokémon :yeahyeah:
 

unownzone

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This is interesting :yesyes: maybe it's something like this:
- the flames that Pokémon use in battle is special so can hurt other Pokémon of the same type
- the flames of their own body isn't dangerous for them but the fire of other things is dangerous :yesyes:
and the second one can explain why we haven't see (in the anime) someone that drink water made by a Pokémon :yeahyeah:

Wow thank you! I think that makes a lot of sense. "Fire type Pokemon that have fire body parts are not harmed by their own fire"

And yes I always thought there was a reason why people don't drink water from water type Pokemon. I believed water type moves like water gun are only moves that a Pokemon uses for defense, so it's not possible to keep your body healthy with it
 

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Wow thank you! I think that makes a lot of sense. "Fire type Pokemon that have fire body parts are not harmed by their own fire"

And yes I always thought there was a reason why people don't drink water from water type Pokemon. I believed water type moves like water gun are only moves that a Pokemon uses for defense, so it's not possible to keep your body healthy with it
You're welcome :h2i: and the "Fire type Pokemon that have fire body parts are not harmed by their own fire" can explain why sometimes humans can pet Pokémon without being hurt :yesyes: (maybe because they can control their own "power" and let the trainer pet them :yeahyeah:)
 
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