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How does Dragonair evolve into Dragonite?

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    • Seen Aug 10, 2013
    How does a 4 meter long blue eel/snake with wings on the sides of its head and orbs on its neck and tail turn into a 2 meter tall, chubby, funny-looking yellow dragon with antenae/tentacles? And why is Dragonair dragon-type when there isn't that much 'dragon' to it?
     
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    Satoshi Ookami

    Memento Mori
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  • Most likely goes through similar metamorphosis as Metapod/Kakuna when evolving into Butterfree/Beedril.
    Instead of shedding the skin, skin will simply break and Dragonite emerges...?
    And it has Dragon characteristics. You might be contradicted by non-Asian way of depicting dragons.
    Japanese dragons do not always look like final dragon evolutions =)
    For example... this is pretty nice example of dragon from Chinese mythology that is fairly used in JRPGs:
    Kohryuu

    Kohryu_first_summoned_in_P4A.jpg
     
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    • they/them
    • Seen Apr 19, 2024
    Ash493 pretty much said my thoughts on the matter. Dragonair must be based on chinese or japanese dragons, who are most of the time depicted as long serpents rather than as some kind of winged lizard akin to Charizard or Dragonite. Same with Rayquaza, right?

    I always thought Dragonite was a bit silly as a final dragon evolution though. Even though it is adorable, I would rather have liked to see an even bigger, wingless serpent with scales or features to make it look rougher than Dragonair.

    Or at least something like this!

    Fake_Pokemon__Dragonair_Evo_by_leedom111.png


    Or this, which is really adorable.
     
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    • Seen Oct 20, 2013
    How does a 4 meter long blue eel/snake with wings on the sides of its head and orbs on its neck and tail turn into a 2 meter tall, chubby, funny-looking yellow dragon with antenae/tentacles? And why is Dragonair dragon-type when there isn't that much 'dragon' to it?

    Just how a tadpole (though not a pokemon, but referable here) turns into a 4-legged frog; there is "dragon" into it, just doesn't seem to be from the outside, its all biology I guess =P
     
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  • There are a lot of weird evolutions... for example Magikarp to Gyarados and Remoraid to Octillery. What can you say, it's Pokemon.
     

    dd409

    For the Swarm!
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    The smart aleck answer would be "it reaches level 55," but honestly I have no idea. Some Pokemon evolutions are just weird. Look at Exeggcute to Exeggutor, Flaafy to Ampharos, Graveller to Golem (it goes from a pile of rocks to an organic thing...), etc.

    The Magikarp one is supposedly based on a Japanese myth/legend. A carp swam up a waterfall and was rewarded for his effort by being transformed into a dragon. It's referenced on the Bulbapedia page for Magikarp (link).
     
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  • Dragonairs a pretty believable dragon type form, and I think it looks normal that it evolves into Dragonite. (I guess it just has the magikarp thing going. But like someone said is has the Chinese dragon form)

    To be honest, it looks more of a dragon type than this..
    329.png
     

    bobandbill

    one more time
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  • Hah, I was wondering if someone was going to bring the Trapinch line into it (and if nobody had I was going to =p).

    But really, there's a bunch of odd evolutions. Remoraid makes a surprising jump for instance, and it's not quite so easy to say that there was a octopus inside that little fishy heart of it. ;p And other examples have been already listed. If anything though, evolution has mostly been a sort of metamorphosis than what we'd actually call an evolution. Metapod --> Butterfree is rather how everything evolves, either to akin or lesser degrees of difference.
     

    Patrick

    Ya'll Are Weird
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  • Remoraid is the worst offender yet. I can see Trapinch, in a punny way. Dragonfly evolves into dragon, and the Trapinch line is one of my favorites, too. Holy crud I just realized how long it's been since I've drawn any of them.
     
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    • Seen Aug 18, 2016
    I think Dragonaire was originally intended to evolve into Gyarados, and Magikarp was originally intended to evolve into Dragonite. I mean, the color schemes and body shapes match WAY better in this case. It could have just been a small coding error.
     

    SolarAbusoru

    Go Go PokéRangers
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  • I think Dragonaire was originally intended to evolve into Gyarados, and Magikarp was originally intended to evolve into Dragonite. I mean, the color schemes and body shapes match WAY better in this case. It could have just been a small coding error.

    Nope, that's just a false tale. (just as false as the Butterfree/Venomoth theory)

    If you know the origin of Magikarp's creation, you'll understand that he was always planned to evolve into Gyrados (aka, Japanese legend where if a Carp jumped over a gate up a waterfall, it would transform into a serpentine Dragon, which is what Gyarados is)

    And thus, this rules out Dragonite from that as he's obviously based on a western Dragon.
    Dragonair was always intended to become Dragonite, and in fact, Dragonair's unused beta sprite had a closer resemblance to Dragonite. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p186/0Natsuki/Privateartalbum/botsu.jpg (Dragonair's sprite is in the 3rd box down, notice how it has Dragonite's head antennae?)
     
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    Zeffy

    g'day
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    The answer to the eternal question?
    POKEMON LOGIC - The reason why we love pokemon. XD

    Pokemon logic is quite scientifically precise (emphasis on precise) actually but hey it still won't make sense to everyday, "I don't care about science" citizens.
     
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    • Seen Feb 8, 2020
    How does a 4 meter long blue eel/snake with wings on the sides of its head and orbs on its neck and tail turn into a 2 meter tall, chubby, funny-looking yellow dragon with antenae/tentacles? And why is Dragonair dragon-type when there isn't that much 'dragon' to it?

    First of all when dragonair evolves they say evolve to develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form so it makes sense why dragonair evolves into dragonite just like bagon into salamance so it might have to do something with a dream or something else

    Second of all remoraid is based on a pistol which then evolves into octillary which is a mix of artillery and octopus that's why octillery has a mouth like a tank (I know remoraid isn't included in this post but I just wanted to add it in to show pokemon makes sense)
     

    icycatelf

    Alex
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  • Though I wish Dragonite's design reflected Dragonair's beauty, I read a while ago that Dragonair may be based on Imugi, snake-like proto-dragons of Korean legend that could transform into "true dragons" (Dragonite) if they were able to catch a certain heavenly jewel.
     
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