We Need a Better Way of Determining What Is Legendary and What is Mythical...

[Superfox]

The title says it all. I know that Mythical is kind of a fanmade term for a kind of subset of Legendaries anyway, but the way they're divided up, IMO, is kind of all over the place.

It's a bit weird that Mewtwo is a Legendary, but Mew, the Pokémon Mewtwo was cloned from, is Mythical. There are at least a few other examples. The Swords of Justice are considered Legendary EXCEPT Keldeo, which is Mythical. Also, how is it that Cresselia is a Legendary but Darkrai is not? And for that matter, how in the heck is Arceus, the very God of all Pokémon itself, NOT considered a Legendary when its creations (Dialga, Palkia, Giratina) all are?

So, I'm proposing a new rule, take it or leave it, for determining which is which: The Box Rule. Under this rule, POST-GEN 1, A Pokémon is a Legendary if it is featured on the box artwork for a specific game or DLC or is sufficiently related to a Pokémon that is featured on the box artwork of a game or DLC. This applies post-Gen 1 to explain Mewtwo and the Legendary Birds because the Gen 1 games featured the starters on their box artwork.

So, let's put it into practice:

In Gen 2, Ho-oh and Lugia are obviously Legendaries, but so are the Legendary Beasts because Suicune is featured on Crystal's box art and the other two Legendary Beasts are brought in by association.

In Gen 4, Arceus is now a Legendary because it's sufficiently related to the Creation Trio, being their literal creator.

In Gen 8, Urshifu, Calyrex, Spectrier, and Glastrier are also all still Legendaries because Urshifu and Calyrex are featured on the artwork for the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLCs.

But, as for the Legendary Golems, The Swords of Justice, the Lake Guardians, etc. Those are all now Mythicals.

So, you all get the gist. I think this not only makes it easier to classify, but in general makes Legendaries much rarer and less crowded as a group.

 

[Corveone]

Sorry to disagree, but I don't think game boxes is a 100% defining criteria.

To me it's simple: A Pokémon is legendary when there are legends told about it. Like the legends of the swords of justice fighting a war against humans to protect Pokémon, or Ho-Oh revealing itself and its rainbow colored wings before pure-hearted trainers, or Kyogre expanding the seas with its downpours. Sure, most legendaries do appear in game boxes, but Cobalion, Terrakion and Virizion don't, yet there are legends about them.

So a legendary/mythical is a Pokémon that lived a very long time ago and did something remarkable back then. People know (or at least believe) they existed/exist because stories about their feats have been passed through generations, so even if nobody has seen them in centuries, they're still venerated like gods and most people believe in them.

Legends/Myths is essentially the same. If we look at Dialga and Palkia Dex entries, some refer to them as deities of the Sinnoh Mythology, and some as Legendary Sinnoh Pokémon, so there's no difference.

Mewtwo is actually the opposite of a legend, and it certainly didn't create or do anything. It's a synthetic Pokémon (like Type: Null) resulting from DNA experiments conducted by men, so men created Mewtwo. Similarly with Deoxys, which came out of a space virus. Those Pokémon weren't known in the past, and there are no legends, stories or myths about them, so they're just extremely rare and powerful creatures born under bizarre circumstances.

Some "legendaries" are called that way just to simplify things, but technically not every single-encounter Pokémon with huge stats and no breeding capabilities is a legendary, or an Ultra Beast, some are just their own unique thing.

 

[colours]

if you can get it normally in-game without any real outside requirements, it's a legendary
if it's locked behind an event of some sort, it's a mythical

mew, celebi, jirachi, shaymin, diancie, victini et al are all locked behind events usually requiring some sort of item or at least these days, mystery gift.

i know this is a more literal take to the "how do we classify them better" question, but this has never been an issue to me because the distinction has been pretty clear to me ever since i've started to think about them in this manner.

 

[ReKoil]

if you can get it normally in-game without any real outside requirements, it's a legendary
if it's locked behind an event of some sort, it's a mythical

This lol

Though nowadays some mythicals can be caught in game, like celebi in Crystal VC, Keldeo in Crown Tundra or Deoxys in ORAS postgame.

 

[Sheep]

if you can get it normally in-game without any real outside requirements, it's a legendary
if it's locked behind an event of some sort, it's a mythical

I actually feel a little bit silly that I didn't realize this? lol

I used to think mythicals were all small Pokémon and that's how I (wrongly) defined them, until I realized ones like Darkrai were also mythical. I think looking at it as event = mythical and in-game = legendary does make it a lot easier, though I 100% understand being confused at first since that was me for....an honestly long time. :s

 

[Nah]

idk why they even bothered to make the distinction in the first place. While the words "legendary" and "mythical" don't necessarily always mean the exact same thing, in Pokemon there is no in-universe difference between the two. It's just a matter of if it's event-only or not.

 

[faf]

The difference between a legendary and a mythical can def be confusing esp with the case of Deoxys when it was a mythical but now it's not so much since it can be obtained in game but I also think of it as Myths=event, Legendary=in game.

 

[Superfox]

if you can get it normally in-game without any real outside requirements, it's a legendary
if it's locked behind an event of some sort, it's a mythical

This lol

Though nowadays some mythicals can be caught in game, like celebi in Crystal VC, Keldeo in Crown Tundra or Deoxys in ORAS postgame.

I think you guys misunderstood my point. I'm not confused about what makes a Pokémon Mythical vs. Legendary. I understand that much. I'm just saying that that method is...kind of dumb. It leads to weirdly drawn distinctions in which Pokémon are split off from their supposed counterparts.

Like I said, it's just kinda weird that Arceus is Mythical whereas it's creations are Legendaries. Same thing with Cresselia and Darkrai.

 

[Sheep]

I do understand that. Personally, while it might not be true, I kind of group mythicals in as a type of legendary anyway, and just call them all legendaries most of the time haha. But as someone who barely knew the difference between them for ages I guess that's not surprising.

 

[Quagsire girl]

well mythical pokemon have more powers and can oftenly turn into other pokemon and legendarys oftenly come in different groups or pairs like all of the regis and the forces of nature and mythicals are loners oftenly...