Something's that's been bothering me...

[Mandaryn]

Okay I am new here/to Pokemon. But, I have been pokeing around (see what I did there!?) and I am only more confused. What's the source of this confusion you might say!? Well it's Charizard! What's so confusing about Charizard you might ask!? Let me explain:

If we go to our good friends at bulbapedia and look at his page. We notice something. If you look at the first sentence of Charizard's page you see 'Charizard is a draconic, bipedal Pokémon.' Oh great so what's his type!? Fire/Flying. Wait...WHAT!? Let me get this strait: He's describe as looking LIKE a dragon. But, he's not a dragon type!? I mean If I told you there was this big scaly thing flying around breathing fire, the first words out of your mouth would be, "It's a fire/flying thing!" Right!?

Okay, okay, okay, maybe the reason why they typed him that way was because of his move sets/ pokedex entries. They might shed some light on this. Let's first look at his move set:

According to bulbapedia Charizard can learn a total of 69 moves. I am going to list them from greatest to least : 25 Normal 18 Fire 6 Flying 4 Dragon 4 Dark 4 Fighting 3 Ground 2 Ghost 2 Rock 1 Poison/Psychic/Grass

HA! You might be saying. Charizard can learn more flying than dragon moves. Case closed! Not so fast there, Ash! Let's compare him to another orange, winged Gen 1 Pokemon : Dragonite. Not ONLY does Dragonite LOOK like Charizard but let's look at his entry in bulbapedia 'Dragonite is a draconic, bipedal Pokémon with light orange skin.' Wait what!? Not only that but Dragonite can learn 8 flying moves (more than Charizard.) And, he's typed as Dragon/flying. Which, makes sense. He can also learn more dragon moves (9). So, Dragonite is more 'dragon' than Charizard simply because he can learn more dragon moves!? Does that even make sense?

Okay, let's look Charizard's poke dex entries : 'It spits fire that is hot enough to melt boulders. Known to cause forest fires unintentionally' and 'When expelling a blast of super hot fire, the red flame at the tip of its tail burns more intensely.' Now later entries WILL mention him flying around. So I kind of see it. Charizard is known for flying around and brething fire. But, wait, isn't that EXACTLY what dragons do, too? But, then I look at Dragonite's pokedex entry and see 'An extremely rarely seen marine Pokémon. Its intelligence is said to match that of humans.' So a really smart Pokemon that hangs out at the ocean. That's no more dragon-like then causing forest fires (which I am sure Smokey wouldn't be cool with) So, if I am getting this right, the dragon type pokemon's pokedex entry mentions nothing about being dragon-like but the flying fire breathing Pokemon whose pokedex entries DOES isn't classified as one?

So yeah. I don't get it? Maybe I am over thinking this? Or what!? What d you guys think!?

P.S. I understand that Charizard's Mega evolution is Fire/Dragon. I am specifically talking Charizard.

 

[Juno]

Since Charizard is an evolution of a starter Pokemon, and this was back when the Fairy type didn't exist, I would think the reason behind not giving Charizard a Dragon typing was so he wouldn't have a distinct advantage over the other starters, as Dragons were supposed to be the strongest/rarest type. Dragon Pokemon usually come much later in the games and are difficult to find or catch - they probably didn't want to just give you a Dragon in the beginning. Everyone would be choosing Charmander if Charizard had a Dragon typing.

 

[Mandaryn]

Since Charizard is an evolution of a starter Pokemon, and this was back when the Fairy type didn't exist, I would think the reason behind not giving Charizard a Dragon typing was so he wouldn't have a distinct advantage over the other starters, as Dragons were supposed to be the strongest/rarest type. Dragon Pokemon usually come much later in the games and are difficult to find or catch - they probably didn't want to just give you a Dragon in the beginning. Everyone would be choosing Charmander if Charizard had a Dragon typing.

Yeah - that does make a lot of since. I am guessing that the mega evolution is a node in that general direction, then? I wasn't really around until Gen. 3 But, I do remember hearing about some of the balancing problems that occurred in Gen. 1.

 

[bunny24680]

I always wanted Charizard to be either Fire/Dragon (or Dragon/Dire) or Dragon/Flying...
But it's not so.... It's good that the Pokemon company realized this and made its Mega
Evolution as Fire/Dragon...........

Similar problem is with Gyarados. It looks like a dragon. Even in gen 1 and III (FireRed
and Leafgreen), lance (a dragon user) used Gyarados in it's team. So why it's not
a dragon? Even the mega evolution is not of a dragon!!!!

 

[moon]

I never thought about Juno's explanation before but it makes a lot of sense. I'm gonna go ahead and believe that's it :) Lizards happened to make for good starter pokémon, probably, alongside a turtle and a dinosaur. Reptiles.

It's always been bugging me that Dragonite and Charizard are so alike though. Sure, there are Pikachu-clones in every gen, but these two were in the same generation and one is dragon and the other is not.

And Gyarados not being dragon is just as bad :/ At least it could have been properly able to fly if it was flying typed.

 

[Mandaryn]

I always wanted Charizard to be either Fire/Dragon (or Dragon/Dire) or Dragon/Flying...
But it's not so.... It's good that the Pokemon company realized this and made its Mega
Evolution as Fire/Dragon...........

Similar problem is with Gyarados. It looks like a dragon. Even in gen 1 and III (FireRed
and Leafgreen), lance (a dragon user) used Gyarados in it's team. So why it's not
a dragon? Even the mega evolution is not of a dragon!!!!

Exactly! This is a long the same lines of what I was thinking as well! Good to see I'm not the only crazy one out there.

 

[pippitha]

Because a pokemon's typing is not based on its appearance. There's a lot of pokemon that look like it should be one type, but they're something completely different.

 

[Superfox]

Yeah, Juno pretty much nailed this one on the head. It was most probably because they didn't want to just give you a Dragon type right off the bat, as it was arguably the strongest type back in the day.

I always wanted Charizard to be either Fire/Dragon (or Dragon/Dire) or Dragon/Flying...
But it's not so.... It's good that the Pokemon company realized this and made its Mega
Evolution as Fire/Dragon...........

Similar problem is with Gyarados. It looks like a dragon. Even in gen 1 and III (FireRed
and Leafgreen), lance (a dragon user) used Gyarados in it's team. So why it's not
a dragon? Even the mega evolution is not of a dragon!!!!

Gyarados is pretty much in the same boat as Charizard. Magikarp were pretty common in Red/Blue. You could catch them pretty much anywhere, if memory serves me. So, the creators of Pokémon probably thought it would be better to give it another typing so that everyone wasn't just running around with Gyarados.

As for why its Mega isn't Dragon type? Well, that's really open for debate. Perhaps they didn't want the perception to be that Dragon was being overused. Charizard and Ampharos already gained Dragon as a secondary type for their Mega Evolutions. And now, so is Sceptile.

 

[Hiatus]

I've always wondered why Lucario wound up getting fighting-steel, and not something along the lines of either fighting-dark, psychic, or pretty much anything else that would be more suitable. Parts of its body do have metallic things attached (such as that fang-like cone structure on its hands), but that's not really a great reason to have it categorized as steel. Dark and psychic would both have made a lot more sense in general, as it learns a lot of moves that are grouped within those types.

As for Gyarados not being water-dragon--I'm pretty confused about that, too; in my opinion, it would've fit much, much better than flying. It doesn't have access to much flying-type attacks either, sadly (right now, Bounce is the only one I could think of), so as far as STAB goes, it's unable to take much advantage of that.

If Gyarados were indeed water and dragon, could you imagine how much competition it would've given to some Pokémon like Kingdra? Would've been quite amusing, if you ask me!

 

[ShivaDF]

I've always wondered why Lucario wound up getting fighting-steel, and not something along the lines of either fighting-dark, psychic, or pretty much anything else that would be more suitable. Parts of its body do have metallic things attached (such as that fang-like cone structure on its hands), but that's not really a great reason to have it categorized as steel. Dark and psychic would both have made a lot more sense in general, as it learns a lot of moves that are grouped within those types.

But aura is based on chi, right? Isn't that why it's a Fighting-type?

What I always hated was that Psyduck and Golduck are not Psychic-types. That never made sense to me.

 

[bunny24680]

Yeah, Juno pretty much nailed this one on the head. It was most probably because they didn't want to just give you a Dragon type right off the bat, as it was arguably the strongest type back in the day.



Gyarados is pretty much in the same boat as Charizard. Magikarp were pretty common in Red/Blue. You could catch them pretty much anywhere, if memory serves me. So, the creators of Pokémon probably thought it would be better to give it another typing so that everyone wasn't just running around with Gyarados.

As for why its Mega isn't Dragon type? Well, that's really open for debate. Perhaps they didn't want the perception to be that Dragon was being overused. Charizard and Ampharos already gained Dragon as a secondary type for their Mega Evolutions. And now, so is Sceptile.

I agree to what you said about Gyarados. If it was dragon, then everybody would have chose it.
But still it's bad that its mega evolution isn't!

I still think that Mega Ampharos shouldn't be Electric/Dragon. Look at him, he looks nothing like
dragon. Better he looks like Electric/Fairy pokemon with all those clouds and stuff!
Look at Altaria too! Does it looks like a dragon in any way? No but still it's a dragon!

Since Charizard is an evolution of a starter Pokemon, and this was back when the Fairy type didn't exist, I would think the reason behind not giving Charizard a Dragon typing was so he wouldn't have a distinct advantage over the other starters, as Dragons were supposed to be the strongest/rarest type. Dragon Pokemon usually come much later in the games and are difficult to find or catch - they probably didn't want to just give you a Dragon in the beginning. Everyone would be choosing Charmander if Charizard had a Dragon typing.

Yeah, I think you are pretty right! I'm also happy that they realised that charizard should be given Dragon title so they created Mega Charizard X!

 

[Superfox]

I agree to what you said about Gyarados. If it was dragon, then everybody would have chose it.
But still it's bad that its mega evolution isn't!

I still think that Mega Ampharos shouldn't be Electric/Dragon. Look at him, he looks nothing like
dragon. Better he looks like Electric/Fairy pokemon with all those clouds and stuff!
Look at Altaria too! Does it looks like a dragon in any way? No but still it's a dragon!

Well, Ampharos' name in Japanese, Denryu, literally means "Electric Dragon."

Plus, in Eastern mythology, including Chinese and Japanese lore, dragons have the ability to influence weather events, hence the reason why Mega Ampharos has a cloud-like mane and tail.

 

[Xander Olivieri]

Being Draconic doesn't mean you are a Dragon. There are many sub-species of dragons two most popular are Wyrms and Wyverns.

In Pokemon's world, at the beginning Dragons were scarce and extremely rare Pokemon. So even the draconic Pokemon, Charizard, Seadra, and Gyarados weren't full dragons due to the lore around them. Dragons were one of a kind rare pretty much, (being the only Dragon then was the Dratini line). A Pokemon handed out to you by a professor, an extremely common everyday fish, and an exotic marine animal don't exactly meet this standard.

They are Dragons by body and relationship, but they weren't Dragons by type. Even Lance and other Dragon Tamers use Non-Dragon Type Pokemon on their teams. Milotic and Gyarados both fall into Sea Serpents which are possibly one of the lowest branches of Dragons from the Wyrm's side. They are more serpentine and closer to asianic dragons in appearence.

Charizard is a winged Salamander. Salamanders are lesser dragons and elementals of fire. Dratini was a serpent like Dragon that eventually evolved into a more western view, albeit extremely pop-cultured in look. Though only western dragons are more known for destruction. Eastern dragons are more known for their magical abilities as well as their incredibly vast knowledge.

Each iteration of Dragon so far is fairly well matched, even the non-dragon typed Dragon Pokemon. Which has Pokemon like Ekans, Arbok, Treecko, Grovyle, Sceptile, Seviper, Scraggy, Scrafty, Helioptile, and Heliolisk.
Three Serpents (Wyrms), Geckos (Woodland lesser Dragons similar to Salamanders but of earth element), two Marsupial Dragons (another sub species), and the last set closer resemble dinosaurs, but even various dinosaurs are slated as "dragons" (Which was why Lance used an Aerodactyl, also why we have a T-Rex as a Dragon).

There are only 2 Dragons that aren't part of the breed group, Flygon (which is based off of a bug that shares similarities with a Dragon Fly so its more a pop-cultured spin) and Noibat/Noivern (Noivern is a Wyvern which is a sub species of Dragon. Most don't consider Wyverns as direct lineage to Dragons unlike Wyrms.)


Ampharos was a bit odd, but even then, I had someone I knew that had an Ampharos on his Dragon Dream Team since it was a Thunder Dragon God. To my friend Ampharos looked draconic, though I didn't agree.

Dragon related and Dragon type aren't expressed to be the same thing. Charizard has always been a "Dragon", even without the typing.

 

[Jarrad]

They wanted to balance the original 3 starters. By making one of the starters' final evolutions a dragon type would mean that every child with sense would pick a charmander as it would give them a huge advantage in game.