Shamol

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Age 31
Male
Texas
Seen November 7th, 2021
Posted November 28th, 2016
185 posts
9.8 Years
Look at some of the flying-type attack names:

Aerial Ace
Aeroblast
Air Cutter
Air Slash
Gust
Hurricane
Wing attack
Sky Attack
Tailwind

In light of this, wouldn't the type more appropriately be called the air type? Sure, there are moves like peck, drill peck, pluck, roost, brave bird and such, but for me, the flying type movepool suggests the overarching theme of air being used as the primary element, as opposed to just the act of flying.

This is because there are many Pokemon that can fly, but don't belong to the flying type (Garchomp and Flygon immediately comes to mind). That means it's not the act of flying that bestows this type on pokemon, but rather some sort of specialized control over air.

Finally, consider the fact that pokemon types, on the whole, tend to be based on natural elements. Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to have a type explicitly based on the air element?

[This last point could also be used to suggest a renaming of the grass type to plant type (or something similar), and perhaps the fighting type to...chi type? If types are construed as natural elements, then normal types could either be a lack of any element or a combination of all]
"Perseverence in science needs to be tempered by flexibility."

-Haig Kazazian, in Mobile DNA: Finding Treasures in Junk
Female
Seen November 17th, 2016
Posted September 21st, 2016
150 posts
6.8 Years
Flying and fighting are both silly names for types, as are dragon and fairy. Flying should indeed be air but I've no idea what fighting, dragon or fairy would be replaced with. Really I feel like normal and fighting are kind of redundant, in terms of concepts; one battles using its physical attributes and the other... battles using its physical attributes? And dragon and fairy are more descriptions of (mythological) animals than elements... I (sarcastically) suggest renaming flying to 'bird' and water to 'fish'. Sure not all water type pokemon are fish, but not all dragon type pokemon look like dragons so... In fact, it wouldn't even be that ridiculous, we already have 'bug type' after all!

I do think grass would be better named 'plant'.

I also struggle to see why we need both ghost and dark. Neither are really elements - I suppose you could say that ghost represents fear, death and the spirit world but what about dark? It also seems to be used for much the same thing, so they seem pretty redundant.

In short, there are a lot of things that don't make sense in the typing system, but then there's a lot of things that don't make sense in Pokemon, and we love it anyway!

Lunar

Age 24
Male
England
Seen September 16th, 2020
Posted September 15th, 2020
Although I can see the logic here, when you look at the list of flying Pokemon, a high percentage of them have wings or something similar that would allow them to fly. Of course there are some which would be more fitted to the description of a potential Air type but the large majority of flying types being able to fly means that the actual flying itself might be the main factor in the name of the type.

Shamol

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Age 31
Male
Texas
Seen November 7th, 2021
Posted November 28th, 2016
185 posts
9.8 Years
Here are some pokemon who strike me as pretty adept fliers:

Beedrill
Venomoth
Scizor
Dustox
Volbeat
Illumise
Vibrava
Flygon
Latios
Latias
Garchomp
Hydreigon
Volcarona

And yet, they don't have a flying type. If you define the type as having the ability to fly well, I think at least some of these definitely qualify. The fact that they don't tells me the type is defined not in terms of flight alone, but some sort of control over air (which entails flight).

That or these pokemon couldn't be afforded a flying type because the two type slots were already occupied, but that's no fun.
"Perseverence in science needs to be tempered by flexibility."

-Haig Kazazian, in Mobile DNA: Finding Treasures in Junk

Flowerchild

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Age 24
She/Her
Hyperspace
Seen 5 Days Ago
Posted July 7th, 2022
8,699 posts
13 Years
I mean, Air Type makes me think of some Pokémon that has some kind of magical/supernatural control over the air currents - something like Tornadus - rather than just something with the capacity to fly. I dunno if that's just me, but I feel that Flying is a bit more fitting for something like a Pidgey. It can't control the air in any respect, but it can fly.
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Lycanroc

under the sun

Male
U.S.A.
Seen November 24th, 2018
Posted June 11th, 2017
728 posts
10 Years
Air Type????

Don't all Pokemon breathe air?

Flying is the most suitable term for these type of Pokemon...
It's not that they breathe air, it's that they have explicit control over air. I, personally, do not think Flying is not that suitable... let's look at some flightless Flying types. We have...

Doduo
Dodrio
Gyarados
Delibird
Mantine (technically speaking)
Mantyke
Rotom-Fan
Hawlucha (correct me if I'm wrong here)
Minior

Not every Flying-type can fly, but they all can manipulate air to an extent, right? So while I never really thought of it before coming to this thread, I do believe that Air is more fitting.
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