Pokémon Red and Blue / Fridge

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Fridge moments for Pokémon Red and Blue.

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Fridge Brilliance

Lance's Dragonite knows Barrier, which it cannot normally learn. In later generations, when visiting Dragon's Den, it is possible to obtain a Dratini that knows ExtremeSpeed... which cannot be learned by the Dragonite line. Maybe Lance got one with Barrier instead?
Why does Team Rocket arm its members with nothing but Rattata and Zubat?
- It isn't that hard to go out into the wild and catch a few Pokémon with more type diversity. Think about Team Rocket as an organization: in general, they steal everything they want. And what sort of creatures are best for theft in dark places? Rats and bats. Team Rocket thinks of their Pokémon as tools to the point that they don't even consider training them for direct encounters with other Pokémon.
- They're also fairly common and easy to catch. Not too great in terms of Pokémon. Much like military standard issue weapons: Nothing fancy, gets the job done.
- Team Rocket is also a big, power-centric criminal organization, with a hierarchy. So it's quite a bad idea to give the grunts powerful monsters with which they have a chance to rally together and usurp the leaders. That's why they're given low-level weak Pokémon species with which they'll probably be able to repel most intruders, but not them. The same principle works with the Executives; they need powerful Pokémon to protect themselves from their subordinates, but the Boss will keep the most powerful monsters for themselves. This also explains why Giovanni uses Ground-types while Team Rocket has an affinity for Poison-types... it gives him an advantage over his underlings in case they try any funny business!
- Some rare Grunts, including three of the Rocket Brothers and the ones right before Giovanni at the Rocket Hideout, defy the normal typing and instead use are seen with Psychic, Fighting, and even Ground-types, of higher-than-average level compared to the other Grunts. They're squad leaders and Giovanni's bodyguards, so they have Pokemon that give them the advantage on the common Grunts.
- The TR-aligned Scientists at Silph Co. tend to use a mix of Electric and Poison-types, as they aren't originally Team Rocket members and instead use their own Pokemon.
- At Silph Co. there's also a Juggler with Psychic Pokemon openly aligned with Team Rocket. He was a normal trained recruited at Nugget Bridge or in a similar way, and kept his own Pokemon.
Ditto may be failed attempts by Team Rocket at cloning a Mew. Ditto is pinkish-purple (the shade seems to vary in each game or episode it ever shows up in) just like Mewtwo, while Mew is pink. Both Mew and Ditto's shiny forms are the same shade of light blue. Ditto, like Mew, is genderless, and let us not forget that Ditto and Mew are the only two (currently) existing Pokémon that learn Transform naturally. Add to that the fact that Ditto and Mew both weigh the same (8.8lbs), and they both exhibit a fairly rare trait among Pokémon: All their base stats are equal (48 for Ditto, 100 for Mew).
It may seem odd that your rival has a Gyarados, since he doesn't exactly strike one as the type of guy willing to train a lowly Magikarp up to level 20. You never actually fight his Gyarados as a Magikarp. In fact, it is the only member of his team who never fights you in its basic form. Why is this?
- He may have taken a shortcut and caught a Gyarados instead of a Magikarp, illustrating his lack of patience, dislike of weak Pokémon, and unwillingness to commit to a lasting friendship with his Pokémon.
- Alternatively, he left it at the Daycare until it reached Level 19, then raised it to 20.
- He just recognized the potential of a Magikarp and trained it into the gigantic monster that is Gyarados. Unpleasant as he is, Blue is good at the "training" part of being a Trainer. He's also working on a Pokédex. Whilst impatient, he still wants to prove he's better than the player. So he got to work training Magikarp, knowing that he would get a Gyarados out of it - two more pages on his Pokédex, and a pet leviathan to boot.
- Or he just traded for it. Possibly by Raticate.
- Relating to this, his Gyarados knows Dragon Rage and Hydro Pump, despite being at level 22 (if your starter was Bulbasaur) or level 23 (if your starter was Squirtle), which Gyarados is supposed to learn at levels 25 and 43 respectively. While it is possible for Gyarados to learn Dragon Rage early via TM, no such explanation exists for it knowing Hydro Pump early, implying this may be an illegal Pokémon.
Misty only displays two Pokémon, (Level 18 Staryu and 21 Starmie), yet she is said to train at the Seafoam Islands, where the lowest level Pokémon is several levels above her team. This is because Staryu and Starmie aren't her only Pokémon, and she has a set whose levels are much higher. This can be extrapolated: All Gym Leaders probably have a set of Pokémon used to face each challenger based on their skill level. For example, if Giovanni would have been present as Red's first Gym Leader, he would have used the level of Pokémon that Brock used to face you, then Brock would've used the level of Misty, etc.
- In G/S/C when you visit the Kanto Gyms, all of the leaders there have sets of Pokémon in the 40s/50s level range, and all have more than two.
- This entire theory is straight up confirmed in B2W2. After you beat Cheren, he says that if he could have used his "usual" Pokémon, the battle would have been a lot easier for him.
- Also confirmed by Pokémon Origins. When Red faced Brock, he chose his Pokémon based on the number of badges Red had (which was zero).
Why do Team Rocket's Pokémon listen to them, since they clearly don't respect their Pokémon and the lore says Pokémon only listen to those they respect? Furthermore, the fact that they all have 'standard' Pokémon suggests they are given them rather then catching and raising them, traded Pokémon don't automatically respect their new trainer. It's because their leader happens to be the gym leader that can hand out badges that make any Pokémon listen to you no matter what! Could it be that Team Rocket is getting badges issued along with their Pokémon?
- Another possibility is that the Pokémon do respect Team Rocket. Think about it: most of the Pokémon are low-level and are either prey Pokémon (like Rattata) or Poison-types. In both cases, the Pokémon are looked down on by most humans and Pokémon. They're likely happy to be part of an organization that makes them stronger and allows them to indulge in their aggressive natures, just like their human counterparts.
The first seven gyms have at least one trainer showing clear admiration for the gym leader, but the last one makes an exception. Of course, this is to keep the last leader's identity a mystery (it was one, back in the days), but if you consider the thuggish and power-hungry nature of the trainers there, is also a good clue about his nature.
- Also, it seems quite a happy coincidence that Giovanni comes back to the gym just when you need to fight him, doesn't it? As a matter of fact, he actually comes back because you need to fight him. You already challenged him (and won) more than once, he would, of course, have gathered some info about you and found out you were collecting the badges, so instead of waiting for you to come unexpectedly once again, he decided to meet you where he was sure it would happen on his conditions, to deal with you once for all.
- Giovanni's dialogue suggests you've set back his plans and humiliated him to the point he's opted to lay low at the Viridian Gym, his legitimate job. Not that it meant he didn't still have a bone to pick with you.
In Japanese, the Badges in Red and Blue (Green) are named after their respective colors instead. Now the last Gym Leader you face is Giovanni, who gives you the Earth Badge (Green Badge). In GSC, you hear the tale of Red who beat Team Rocket, became the League Champion and disappeared. In Giovanni's place is Red's rival... Green! Now it makes more sense that his team was multi-type in the Ground-type Viridian Gym.
- The Gym is also stationed in Viridian City. Viridian is a blue/green-ish colour. Made even better by the renaming of Green to Blue outside of Japan - Viridian applies to both.
Your rival says that you're a "chatty gossip", which doesn't make any sense considering your Heroic Mime status. If you think about it, though, your character does talk. You always talk when you call out your Pokémon, you introduce yourself to people, and you even say sentences to Copycat that she echoes. Combined with the fact that you and your rival were childhood friends, who's to say that you never were a gossip?
The Legendary Birds are given an internal numerical order via Spanish: ArticUNO, ZapDOS, MolTRES. One, two, three. The names also incorporate terms associated with their types (Arctic for ice, Zap for electric, Molten for fire).
- As icing on the cake, the first letters of their names are the first, last, and middle (13th) letters of the alphabet, respectively.
Ratatta and Raticate are found in, among other places, the Pokémon Mansion. An abandoned building, much like where rats might thrive in real life.
The Ho Yay regarding Blue/Green and Red actually would make sense. Blue is only about 11 years old. How do 11 year olds treat those they have a crush on? They bully them. The backstory of the games mention that Blue only became this way recently. 11 is in the range that a boy can start puberty, so his tendencies to be a Jerkass are just his way of expressing his love for Red. Unfortunately, from Red's and the player's perspective, he just comes across like an entitled douchebag.
In Celadon City, the NPC who usually hangs around offering general advice about the Gym's leader is playing slots at the Rocket Game Corner. That's because Celadon Gym doesn't exactly let men hang around.
Every single game's box art has legendaries on the front, corresponding to the game's supposed color. Not generation 1 though. Instead of the legendaries, it's the starter's final forms instead (Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur). No other generation does this, aside from the third with FireRed and LeafGreen (which are remakes of the first gen anyway). The Red/Blue/Green/Yellow story is the only one where the Rival is the champion after the Elite Four, which makes it distinct. The final Pokémon your rival usually sends out is commonly the final form of their starter, meaning that in addition to being your main Pokémon, the starter trio is also responsible for providing the final boss of this story (with Mewtwo being a non essential Superboss).
- Also, those starters are pretty legendary looking back, almost 20 years later.
Charmander does have an early advantage among the three Pokémon, only that's it's not over the first few Gym Leaders, but rather, the location before the first gym; Charmander can easily raze through all Bug-type Pokémon in the Viridian Forest with Ember, only being in risk of poison if you're trying to catch a Weedle.
- This can also be extrapolated to Bulbasaur and Squirtle. The former would have any easy time with the first two gyms, but would struggle against the bug Pokemon used by the normal trainers. Charmander would be in the opposite situation, and Squirtle would be somewhere in the middle having any easy time with the first gym but would run into trouble with the grass and electric types that start to pop up afterwards. After the third gym, the player gains access to all three types (the Oddish/Bellsprout line after reaching Cerulean City, Magikarp after buying it in the Mt. Moon Pokémon Center, and the Vulpix/Growlithe line after reaching Lavender Town).
Items in the overworld appear as Pokéballs. Players often make fun of how you don't just pick up the Pokéball and add it to your inventory, as well as how you can fit thousands of items in one bag. This is explained because... All the stuff in your bags fits in there because they're stored inside Pokéballs.
- Alternatively, what's to say that the technology that give Pokéballs their storage capacity can't be applied to other things, like your Bag? It definitely covers the Bag of Holding the player character has, though it doesn't explain why overworld items are in Balls.
Sevii = Seven + VII!
- Alternatively, Sevii = Seven + Hawaii! Made even greater when you realize that the boat goes East from the ports. Now what is across the ocean to the east of Japan? Hawaii!
The Lava Cookie being found by the infamous truck in FireRed and LeafGreen? The Lava Cookie is tied to the Hoenn region. And how did the player character start Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald? In a very similar truck. Perhaps the truck at the Vermilion dock is the same moving truck?
- Ruby and Sapphire stating that the player character came from Johto would seem to contradict this at first... but there's no reason that the boat that took Norman's family to Hoenn couldn't have stopped in Kanto along the way, especially since the S.S. Aqua in Gold and Silver does travel back and forth between the two regions.
- In real life Japan, there's a bridge connecting Honshu^note to Kyushu^note, right around the area Rustboro is based on. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume the truck drove a region or two westward before crossing a bridge (not present in the game) to Rustboro, then making its way down past Petalburg, Oldale, and finally Littleroot.
Places in Kanto are named after colors. The city you start out in is called Pallet (palette).
- The badges share this nomenclature as well, in the Japanese version.
- Johto gets in on it as well, signifying the relationship between the two regions; Cherry(grove), Violet, Azure(Azalea), Gold(enrod), Mahogany, Ecru(teak), Cyan(Cianwood), Olive(Olivine) and Black(thorn). Plus, not only are they all based off colours and therefore continuing the theme from Kanto, they are also all names of trees or shrubs therefore creating the region's own theme.
The Pokémon that can't be captured in Yellow (minus Electabuzz, Magmar, and Jynx) seem to have a really strong connection to the anime. A lot are really obvious, like how the Ekans family, Meowth family, and Koffing family belong to Team Rocket, and how Pikachu will refuse to evolve into Raichu (unless if you trade), but Weedle, Kakuna, and Beedrill are unobtainable, despite not having any association with Team Rocket. However, in the anime, a swarm of Beedrill stole his Metapod (which soon evolved into Butterfree, the counterpart of Beedrill). So in a way, Beedrill was antagonistic to Ash.
On Route 11, there is a Gambler/Gamer who claims he has never lost before, who has Water Pokémon. There is another Gambler who says he's never won before, and he has Fire Pokémon, which are weak to Water types. Have they been just battling each other before they meet the player character, with the Fire-type Gambler always losing because of a type disadvantage?
Fire Spin being learned in very late levels appear to be a case of Power Up Letdown, but not in Generation I. Due to how trapping moves work in this generation, speedy users of those moves render them as Game Breakers as they can spam the moves over and over while the target is unable to do anything, thus the reason it deserves its spot to be learned at higher levels back then.
The name of the Pokémon League's location is Indigo Plateau. Indigo is a shade of purple, in other words, a meeting of Red and Blue, which is exactly what happens there.
Among all the evidence that your Rival is the asshole that the game treats him as, there's none more damning than his ambush inside Silph Co. He's just there to challenge you, that's it. He openly mocks the Rockets' weakness despite them having taken an entire city hostage. But the real rotten Cherrim on top of this rotten Vanilluxe sundae is where he ambushes you: in the room with the teleporter pad that leads you to Giovanni! He's THAT far in... and all he does is wait for you simply to challenge you. He may have fought his way in, but the fact that he got there first means he could've beaten Giovanni and saved the day in the time it took you to get there. His levels show that he could take Giovanni on and win. What's worse is that had he actually beat Giovanni, not only will he have saved the city, he'd have earned the Master Ball AND proven himself better than you. Hell, he could've gotten that Lapras that you get from the employee in the same room. Four Pidgeys with one Rock Throw. But no, he's only there because he knew you'd be there. And not once does he show concern that he's right in the middle of a terrorist hostage situation. As soon as you win, he starts talking about challenging the League and leaves you to deal with the mess. It's telling that Origins rewrote this entire encounter with several factors changed that makes Blue far less of a dick than his game self. But with the original version? As far as he was concerned, he'd let a city suffer under terrorists, even sneak in the very heart of the chaos, just to have a chance to beat you then rub it in your face. The safety of everyone in Saffron is beneath him, only the satisfaction of being the strongest and best Trainer in Kanto, and overall, of being better than you.
- Perhaps Blue did go into Silph with the intention of saving Silph Co. (after all, he kind of needs the Gym free so he can earn his Badge), but when he saw you running around Saffron, he knew right away you would want to play the hero. So he figures "It's Red/Leaf! Silph's gonna be fine in the long run! Might as well fight him/her while I'm here. I'm a match for Boss Rocket to begin with, so if they beats me, they're just as much of a match. We're good, fam!" Besides, liberating a whole corporation only goes so far compared to doing that AND smoking your rival in the process.
Why does Blue only ever seem to wear purple in his Gen 1 & 3 artwork? Same reason Professor Oak wore a purple shirt: Their Japanese surname, Ookido, is a transliteration of Orchid, which has a light purple color. It's ultimately a nod back to his lineage.
In the Japanese version, Lavender Town is called Shion Town. Shion is a Japanese word for shade of purple, and it also is the Japanese name for the Aster tataricus flower, which in Japanese flower language refers to remembrance, making Shion a fitting name for a place that houses a graveyard.
If you play the Virtual Console versions of the GB games and use PokéTransporter to move your Pokémon to Bank, you will find that they have their Hidden Abilities. These abilities were hidden until you moved them from a game without abilities to one with them.
When you arrive at Pokemon Tower and meet Blue, what was he doing there? Well, Blue basically tells you himself: "How's your Pokédex coming, pal? I just caught a Cubone! I can't find the grown-up Marowak yet! I doubt there are any left!" He went to the tower to catch Cubone and Marowak, found and caught Cubone, searched unsuccessfully for Marowak, and was about to give up and leave when you showed up.
- Or, seeing how the official Japanese Pokémon website alluded that Blue might actually have been visiting a deceased Pokémon of his, he was just putting up a facade in front of Red. He's the kind of guy who would hate to show weakness in front of others, especially his rival.
Pay attention to how Professor Oak walks at the start of the game. It's not as pronounced, but he has the same "swag" walk as his grandson.
Pokémon that only live in Cerulean Cave are listed with 'Area Unknown' should their habitat be checked. Likewise, Pokémon that also live in other places won't be listed living in that cave. The Cave itself is not listed at all in the Town Map, so it makes sense it wouldn't know that certain Pokémon lived in Cerulean Cave.
- Following this, Cerulean Cave has probably never been thoroughly explored before so no one actually knew which Pokémon lived there. The NPC that blocks the entrance is probably just someone that has been assigned to stop people from entering it.
- Even better, in many versions, the cave is simply known as Unknown Dungeon.
The disobedient Nidoran in Pewter City isn't just that way because its family/trainer doesn't have any badges. It also was being commanded to "sit", which is not a Pokémon move, so of course it couldn't do that!

Fridge Horror

When you store Pokémon in a PC, you're actually accessing Bill's PC over a wide-area network connection. There's a couple of nightmare scenarios here. First, it's not Bill's security-hardened redundant data center, it's just his personal computer. What if he doesn't have adequate backups? Plenty of real life companies don't have a disaster recovery plan in place. If Bill so much as loses power at the wrong time, there go all your living, potentially sapient, critters. Second, is this connection secure? What's stopping bad actors from hacking his PC and stealing all the Pokémon?
- This is probably exactly why Team Rocket got their hands on Porygon for. What better weapon, for an organization that uses pokemon as tools of crime, to attempt a break-in of Bill's storage network than the virtual pokemon itself? That said, the only sign of them doing anything with said Porygon is attempting to sell it at the Game Corner, suggesting that whatever nefarious plot they had in mind fell through. Porygon being a Silph Co. creation might even be one of many reasons behind the attempted takeover. It might be useless to them in its current state, but access to Silph Co. servers could give them a way to modify it into being a useful tool of cyberwarfare.
When you meet your rival in Lavender Town in Pokémon Red and Blue, he asks you if any of your Pokémon died. Then you realize not long after that his team has an empty spot, and that his Raticate vanished.
- A page in the official Japanese website about the Pokémon Tower has a section devoted to Blue. The text above the screenshot translates "You meet the rival at the Pokemon Tower, what did he come to do?" The screenshot shows him asking the player character what he could be doing there, as none of his Pokémon are dead. The text below goes "Perhaps (Blue) had come to see a Pokémon he used to cherish... At that moment, there must have been a dispute between Team Rocket and Mr. Fuji, but he might have become too sentimental to notice what was happening upstairs." The implication that Blue was visiting a departed Pokémon of his is clear.
Here's a fun one, at least for the English version: in Gen 1, the Marowak Ghost can be calmed with a Pokédoll, eliminating the need to get the Silph Scope. Sure, it's technically a glitch, but the game never specifies what the doll is a doll of. In the remakes it's clearly a Clefairy, but some of us might imagine it as a Cubone doll instead.
In Pokémon Red and Blue, Lieutenant Surge gives us this line:
Lieutenant Surge: I tell you kid, electric Pokémon saved me during the war! They zapped my enemies into paralysis!
- There was a war in the not-so-distant past of Pokémon (Surge looks like he's in his twenties or thirties, forty at the most) where people undoubtedly used Pokémon as weapons. Given the fact that in our world a single Pokémon could be the equivalent of a WMD, imagine the destruction a war fought by Pokémon could cause.
- This war would also help to explain why there are so few middle aged or younger men around as opposed to boys and elderly men.
Giovanni is the leader of Team Rocket. He's also the last Gym Leader you battle. After you get a badge from him, all Pokémon will obey you, regardless of whether you captured them or not. What if he gave these badges to the Team Rocket grunts, letting them force their stolen Pokémon to fight for them against their will?
Borders on Inferred Holocaust levels of fridge horror, but you don't truly defeat Team Rocket. Their activities in G/S/C/HG/SS aside Team Rocket is still active in Kanto after you soundly defeat them. If you recall the Game Corner is actually called the Rocket Game Corner. Many of the Pokémon you can obtain there are from places where Team Rocket had their operations in; Abra from the Nugget Bridge, Clefairy from Mt. Moon, Porygon from Silph Co., etc. This means you're indirectly funding an evil organization into poaching more Pokémon and making a comeback in the future just by trying to complete your Pokédex.
- On the subject of "poaching", nearly all of the other Pokémon available at the Game Corner (Scyther, Pinsir, Dratini, technically even Nidorino/Nidorina although their pre-evolved forms are also available on Route 22) are otherwise only obtainable in the Safari Zone, suggesting they're all endangered species...
The fact that the scientist at the Pokemon Mansion managed to create Mewtwo is pretty horrifying on a couple of levels. We still have no idea who owned the Mansion, who was financing the research, or what their intentions were. If someone was able to successfully mass produce Mewtwos, they'd pretty much be unstoppable.
- It was hinted (especially in the Japanese versions) that it was Mr. Fuji, and that after the Mewtwo incident, he had a change of heart and dropped Mew at Faraway Island so that it could live in peace away from humans. Which suggests that the kindly old man you met in Lavender Town was devoting his life to volunteer work as a way of atoning for what he had done. The Truer to the Text adaptation Pokémon Origins left out any ambiguity, with Fuji outright admitting it.

Fridge / Pokémon Red and Blue

Edit Locked

Fridge pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all entries have been folderized as a security measure. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned!