Pokémon Scarlet and Violet / Fridge

Fridge pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers have been removed and all entries folderized. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

This page is for non-Gen IX Pokémon entries regarding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. For entries regarding the newly introduced Pokémon, including the Paldean regional forms and Paradox Pokémon, see Fridge.Pokemon Generation IX Families.

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Fridge Brilliance

Clavell and Nemona's reaction to certain elements of bullying (and to a greater degree, trauma) within their respective arcs make a lot of sense when one considers just how complex bullying can really be, and how difficult it can be to properly address it. In both cases, they were unaware of how bullying might have occurred until it was pointed out to them through someone who did understand and was subjected to it (Team Star and Penny respectively). They're also people who've come into situations where bullying was seen as nonexistent (Clavell), or was hidden from them via taking advantage of their biases or their own mental framework (both of them).
- In Clavell's case, he failed to truly understand the complex situation behind Team Star's rise and devolution, and if he hadn't been willing to help out with Operation Starfall and understand the true nature of the situation, he would have likely ended up making a drastic decision that would have worsened the situation.
- In Nemona's case, her inability to recognize the player's box legendary being bullied by its Area Zero counterpart stems from her thinking from a mental framework of it being a much less negative situation than it seemed, highlighting how she can recognize bullying if she thinks it's bullying (Team Star), but if she's not looking at it correctly, she won't realize it until it's pointed out to her (the Raidon).
  - At the start of the game, after the player defeated the first of two Team Star members, Nemona walks up to the player and initially starts scolding them, thinking they were the one picking a fight. It's not until the player explicitly points out that they were challenged directly that Nemona seems to realize that the player was innocent. It's possible that she doesn't quite recognize the difference between fighting for fun and fighting in self-defense because she's so eager for a fight on equal footing.
Clavell's character in general. All the way back at the very beginning of the game, the player character's mother expresses surprise at Clavell showing up in person when your enrollment documents were delayed, and his response is that he's responsible for the whole academy, "including all of its failures". That character trait ends up informing his actions during the Starfall Street plotline, and in all likelihood was why he was chosen as the new director in the first place following the scandal 18 months prior.
Larry:
- His name fits both of his type specialties. It's a rather boring and basic name when compared to the more fantastic names in the Pokémon world, but it being a simple, boring name fits his Normal-type. It also matches his Gym Leader appearance, being a guy at the restaurant's bar that you didn't even think twice about, of course a guy like him would just be named Larry. The name also shares the first three letters of "lark", a type of bird, and the "arry" sounds like "airy", fitting his Flying-type specialty. In addition, both Normal and Flying are the most Boring, but Practical type combinations in the entire series, often seen on the common resident bird of the region.
- His appearance is very much the everyman he's presented as. Except for his tie, which is sky blue with silver outlines of clouds on it, showing he's more (a Flying-Type Elite Four) than he seems (a Normal-Type Gym Leader) at first glance.
- Larry is a pun on "Salaryman" as in "SaLARRYman". The TM he gives is "Facade". During the late game, Larry is revealed as a member of the Elite Four. Everything that we saw before this Larry, the WHOLE thing was a façade.
- In addition: a common Flying-type move is Roost. Roost heals half the Pokémon's HP and transforms any pure Flying-type Pokémon into a Normal-type until the end of the turn. Larry is the Elite Four member that specializes in Flying-types — until he goes back to his gym to rest and eat, where he acts as the Normal-type gym leader.
- More subtly, his Staraptor's Tera type (Normal) matches one of its base types (Normal and Flying). This trait is shared with none of the other Gym Leaders… but it is shared with the other Elite Four members, acting as another piece of foreshadowing to his role as an Elite Four member.
- Larry's Flying-type team has a subtle vacation/business trip motif, since it includes Pokémon like Tropius, Flamigo, and Pom-Pom Style Oricorio. Tropical locales like Hawaii (which is the real-life inspiration for Oricorio's home region) are considered the standard vacation destination, and it's also not unusual for business trips to happen in such places.
  - The above also fits in with Larry's title of the "Exceptional Everyman". As amazing as he is at his job(s), what salaryman hasn't looked out the window while working in their office, saw a bird in flight, and wished they were free to fly wherever they wanted? The Flying Type being Larry's secret specialty lends to him wanting to FLY out of the numb NORMALness of his life.
- Larry's Dudunsparce is the Two-Segmented kind, the only kind found in the wild and Tera Raid Battles, and the kind with a 99% chance a Dunsparce could evolve into. That is, this is the normal, everyday variety of Dudunsparce. Compare Larry's Dudunsparce to Nemona's Dudunsparce, which is the incredibly rare Three-Segmented kind and represents Nemona's equally extraordinary battling skills.
The final battle against the alt box legend is a Tera Raid battle. Your allies cheer to boost your attack, you gain the ability to terastallize after three moves, and it takes place inside a crystalline den.
The Terastallized Ace of the Gym Leaders and one Elite Four make various amounts of sense:
- Katy's Teddiursa reflects the association of bears and honey (which bees make). It's an Ursaring in the rematch, referencing the bugbear, a type of boogeyman.
- Brassius's Sudowoodo is the most straightforward; Sudowoodo look like, and pretend to be, actual trees, therefore it becomes a Grass-type. It's also a strong strategic choice; of the five types that deal super-effective damage against Grass, four of them are weak against Rock. This reflects Brassius's artistic sensibilities, seeking to blend form and function.
- Iono's Mismagius seems strange at first, but witches, which it's partially based on, would be users of black magic in other RPGs (like Final Fantasy), and lightning, which the Electric type is associated with, would be a form of black magic. Mismagius's Dex entries also mention how its cries sound like chants or incantations that can affect the emotions of its targets, while sometimes being curses, sometimes it brings happiness to them, or it can even cast spells to make them fall in love. Iono's catchphrases and performance as a streamer likewise would be similar, bringing joy to her audience.
- Kofu's Crabominable is a crab. Kofu's also a cook, and they both share similar appearances.
- Larry's Staraptor and Flamigo make sense as well for both his types. Both are Flying-type Birds, Staraptor's based on a common bird in Asia, while Flamigo looks almost identical to a real life Flamingo with its sole difference being the knot in its neck.
  - Speaking of Flamigo, its appearance might just be plain and generic looking, making it look out of place compared to most Pokemon. However, it's Larry's Signature Mon in his Elite Four Battle... fitting for the fact that both of them are plain and generic looking.
- Ryme's Toxtricity is based on a guitarist and she's a musician herself. It could also be a play of the word wail, whether that of a guitar or that of a ghost. Toxtricity is also a Poison-type; poison can kill organisms and, from Generation 4 to Generation 8, where it started being classified as Dark, Poison was classified as Psychic in the card game alongside Ghost types.
- Tulip's Florges resembles a bouquet of flowers, and Tulip is named after a flower. Also, Florges was introduced in the generation that introduced the Fairy type (its sole typing), which was given to many older Pokémon, including several Psychic Types like the Ralts line and Kantonian Mr. Mime. In addition, since Generation 8, Fairy-types are classified as Psychic in the card game.
- Grusha's Altaria's down could resemble a bunch of piled up snow, thus connection to Grusha's ice type speciality. In addition, Altaria's base type is Dragon and Flying, making it extra weak to Ice, possibly reflecting how Grusha suffered a Career-Ending Injury when snowboarding.
Like in Gen VII games, each of the Team Star Squad Bosses uses a different Poké Ball that reflects their personality:
- Being from a rich family, Ortega uses Luxury Balls.
- Eri is described as a very caring person who puts others' needs before her, so she naturally uses Heal Balls. This could also be a play on the Heel trope, which she presents herself as.
- Mela uses Quick Balls, which have a high level of effectiveness at the very beginning of the battle. She's quite impatient and short-tempered, so she probably wouldn't have the patience to weaken a Pokémon and then try to catch it.
- In contrast, Giacomo uses Timer Balls, which are more effective the more prolonged the battle becomes. Composing music takes time, so he must be very patient, which is the reason he's willing to prolong Pokémon battles.
  - It is also possible that, as canonically he's the weakest team leader, he would also struggle the most with catching Pokémon. Thus, he prefers Timer Balls because he'd spend a lot of time with each Pokémon battle trying to catch them.
- Atticus uses Repeat Balls, which doesn't make sense at first glance. However, Repeat Balls are used to capture already captured Pokémon. Atticus dresses and act like a ninja, so it might be a reference on how ninjas use a technique to create shadow clones of themselves.
  - It's also worth paying attention to his team. If one counts his Starmobile, he has two Revavrooms in his first team.
  - And his obsession with his history means he's also stuck in the past, and repeating it.
  - If you pay attention to the story, the prototype for the Starmobile was supposed to run on Charcadet, and Mela offered to train them up. Since the current Starmobiles use Revavroom and its prevo (one Varoom on either side on the back wheels), the team would need five Revavroom and 10 Varooms (excluding Atticus's main team one), which are all Poison-Type, making them Atticus's specialty. No wonder he would have a lot of Repeat Balls on hand.
By attending classes at the Academy, it's revealed that Tyme, the math teacher, was previously the Montenevera Gym Leader before retiring and giving the position to her younger sister, Ryme. This could explain why Ryme uses Double Battles; she presumably honed her Gym Leader skills by battling alongside her sister.
- In the Academy Ace Tournament, Tyme Terastallizes her Garganacl, implying it to be her Signature Mon. Its exclusive ability is Purifying Salt, which reduces damage from Ghost-type attacks. Tyme may have chosen Garganacl to have a strategic advantage over her sister whenever they would battle.
- Tyme's presence can in fact still be felt in Montenevera. The first Gym trainer in the Gym test is a school kid who says "One plus one equals to two", the kind of arithmetical statement Tyme herself would say (e.g., she says "Six minus five... only one left" when you corner her in Academy Ace Tournament).
- And speaking of that school kid, their statement itself is a Five-Second Foreshadowing of Montenevera's double battle feature in case you miss MC Sledge's info.
The Elite Four's type specialties match four of the Titans in Paldea^note. Following them is Geeta, and while she has no type specialty, her Signature Mon Glimmora is Rock type, just like Klawf. In a way, it's as though these Elite Four (and Geeta) are as strong as Titans themselves, even matching their types.
Professors Sada and Turo's names mean past and future, respectively, and are revealed to no longer be alive, with their appearances in the game being replaced by their AI duplicate. In other words, they're no longer present.
- Additionally, Sada and Turo were so focused on seeing the past and future that they ultimately stopped living in the present — with their own son, and in the case of the one who walked out on the family, their own spouse.
The Alfornada gym has you take on the Emotional Spectrum Test as the gym's test before you can face Tulip, and it's shortened as ESP, short for "extrasensory perception," the technical name for psychic powers, and is where the word "Esper" (the name for the Psychic type in the Japanese versions of the games) comes from. It helps that there's a Psychic-type move called "Extrasensory".
At the end of their fight, the AI professor is sent to the past/future, but as they explained earlier, they cannot function when not in the presence of Tera crystals, hence why they cannot leave Area Zero, so logically they should shut down after time traveling. However, during the second phase of their boss fight when they are taken over by the Paradise Protection Protocol, they get a One-Winged Angel glow-up that involves Tera crystals spreading to and overtaking parts of their lower body. Though at the time this is simply used to make the AI look cooler for the final phase and never directly pointed out, it may explain why the AI can continue to function outside of Area Zero after time traveling.
The distinction between the Professor and the AI version is enforced by the name that appears over the text boxes. During almost all of your conversations with the AI Professor after The Reveal, it says "AI Sada/AI Turo". But once the fighting starts, it says only Professor Sada/Professor Turo. This reinforces the distinction between the two and their end goals; in a lot of ways, the battle is not with the AI, but with the original Professor's intents and goals — almost like fighting a ghost.
- You might even call it a Ghost in the Machine.
All of the self-healing moves like Roost and Shore Up got their PP changed to 5 instead of 10 to lessen stalling. So, why did Heal Pulse and Wish keep their PP? Simple, both moves heal other Pokémon besides the user and both don't heal fixed amounts of HP, as Clauncher and Clawziter have Mega Launcher, which buffs Heal Pulse to heal 75% of another Pokémon's health, and Wish heals a Pokémon that switches into the active position for half the Wish-using Pokémon's maximum health, such as Luvdisc and Blissey.
- Well, Wish can heal the user if it elects not to switch out, but there's a delay of one turn between the move being executed and the wish coming true, which is plenty of time for the user to be knocked out if it didn't have much HP when using the move (or the opponent is just that strong and/or the user is just that frail). Also, Wish isn't stackable; it will fail if it's used when the user already has a wish pending, which makes it impossible to use consecutively for a steady stream of health (meaning that Pokémon that rely on Wish to sustain themselves can't stand up to sustained aggression unless the opponent's offensive power is hilariously low and/or the Wish-user's defensive stats are hilariously large). Since Wish isn't really viable as a "panic button", has to be used with some degree of anticipation and foresight to be a viable raw-stalling tactic (e.g. anticipating that your currently-healthy Pokémon is about to take a big hit that will leave it in critical condition), and can't be used to undo large amounts of damage on consecutive turns, it didn't get the same nerf that the more immediately-useful self-healing moves did.^note
Arven's team at the end of his route, besides his Signature Mon Mabosstiff, are Pokémon that he literally picked up during the Path of Legends route (other than the Greedent, which was a Skwovet he picked up shortly before battling). Considering that "finding your treasure" is the Arc Words, his team is part of his treasure — the friends he picked up along the way.
- His team throughout the "Herba Mystica" quest includes (barring Mabosstiff and Skwovet) a Shellder, a Toedscool, a Scovillain, and a Nacli, all of them Pokémon related to food: a shellfish, an edible mushroom, chili pepper, and salt. Greedent is also somewhat related to food despite not being a food, as it's a voracious eater — a gourmand, essentially — and hides berries in its tail.
During her gym battle, Ryme summons several Houndstone (and a Greavard) by the power of rap. If you watch the cutscene carefully, you'll notice that they're actually the familiar looking 'gravestones' in the audience. Their Scarlet dex entry says that Houndstone spend most of their time sleeping (meaning they'd been napping up until Ryme summoned them to rave), while Violet says that they're the reincarnation of a dead Pokémon. Ryme's rapping is literally enough to wake the dead.
- Fridge Heartwarming in background information saying Ryme had a "puppy Pokémon" who died but through her living grief returned as a Houndstone. One of them is probably her beloved pet still accompanying her from beyond the grave.
Fridge Pun: The ghost-type leader Ryme is a rapper. Her sister Tyme specializes in rock-types.
- Similarly, Ryme is a rapper who uses Ghost-types. To "ether" someone in hip-hop is to destroy them so thoroughly with a diss that they have no good response.
Levincia is perhaps the closest thing to a modern metropolis in the game. Right before the city and in the beach below it, it's possible to find Grimer, which is a Pokémon that is easily found in polluted areas. Wild Rotom can also be found near Levincia, a Pokémon drawn to large human settlements due to having a symbiotic relationship with modern human technology.
Nemona's obsession with the protagonist makes more sense when you think about it. She's the strongest trainer of Paldea, but if you have no one to reach because you're already the strongest, it's like not having an objective. Now that there is someone who has shown to be as talented as her, she might follow them closely because they have the potential of bringing her down.
The Pokémon Centers look a lot like gas stops; so many people ride Pokémon like Cyclizar and, as a result, it just ended up being the best option for trainers. You can drive in, heal your Pokémon, buy items, and go.
The shrines that houses the Treasures of Ruins' Pokémon have different colours from the Pokémon inside and they're not related to their type: they're actually related to their weakness (Poison type for Wo-Chien which is inside a purple shrine, Fire type for Chien-Pao which is inside an orange shrine, Grass type for Ting-Lu, which is inside a green shrine, and finally Water type for Chi-Yu, which is inside a blue shrine). After all, someone could still probably try to free them, either to catch or defeat them, and there must be a way to start at an advantage by knowing the weakness of these dangerous creatures. It probably also implies that the energy from these types was used to create the stakes and doors that sealed them, harnessing their weaknesses to keep them contained.
At the beginning of the game, the Raidons crashed on that particular beach because they were trying to get to the Professors' lab at the lighthouse, since it is mentioned that they once lived there with the Professor and Arven. Possibly Fridge Heartwarming, since they fled to either the only other place they could call home or the only person (Arven) they knew they could trust.
- This also explains just why it knows exactly how to take you back to the lighthouse via the Inlet Grotto; it may have occasionally been to the grotto to play or explore, and the grotto's reputation of being dangerous due to Houndours and Houndooms makes it unlikely for common folks to try and check what it is. Arven's account on the Raidon going berserk on some Pokémon may actually be one of its scuffles with said Houndours and Houndooms, given that out of all the Pokémon you can find in the grotto during the escort segment, the Houndours are the only ones to actually hunt you down (even if only in cutscenes).
The Raidon's names. You can "ride on" them. In addition, you can battle wild Pokémon while riding them, in a way you "raid" the wilderness "on" your Raidon.
Why do Paradox Pokémon have such unoriginal names? Because they were literally just discovered, similar to Ultra Beasts.
- In addition, there were doubts if they were even Pokémon, to a far more pronounced degree than the Ultra Beasts. Unlike the Ultra Beasts, which had an organization dedicated to finding and catching them and even developed a Poké Ball type designed specifically for them, the Paradox Pokémon only have Sada/Turo studying them. Since Heath's expedition team was conflicted on if they were Pokémon, they were given names based on their appearances rather than the portmanteau names of all other Pokémon (Ultra Beasts included). Plus the fact that the region's professor was likely the biggest source of information about them, but died before they could formally name them.
- All types are covered by at least one Paradox Pokémon… except Normal. There's nothing normal about them, after all.
As seen in the Paradise Protection Protocol's boss fight, the AI Professor's team of Paradox Pokémon are all kept in Master Balls. Like how the Master Ball catches Ultra Beasts more reliably than even the Beast Balls designed specifically to catch Ultra Beasts, the Master Ball would be the most logical choice to capture creatures that were initially difficult to consider as Pokémon.
- Additionally, it's explained that the way they caught Paradox Pokémon was by sending Pokéballs through time to blindly catch whatever happens to be around at the time. It's only logical to use Master Balls for the process to eliminate as many potential failure points as possible, especially when it comes to Paradox Pokémon found in the past. Leaving busted balls around or even exposing Past Pokémon to the concept of being captured but not actually bringing them back could cause widely sweeping changes to the timeline.
- If you look up Professor Sada and Professor Turo on Bulbapedia, you may be disappointed with how lame their Pokémon's movesets are. The professors are using Pokémon that they literally captured moments before challenging you; they haven't trained said Pokémon at all.
Nemona picking the starter Pokémon that is weak to yours. Many people think that the game is going easy on the player, but it makes more sense once you get the final evolutions. Whichever Pokémon she picks will have a secondary typing that is strong against the player's.^Explanation It fits her personality and motive too, since she was clearly going easy on the player at the start of their journey before ramping up the challenge. This is further reinforced in Indigo Disk; prior to the DLC, Nemona terastalizes her starter into its primary type, which is weak against your starter, but post DLC, she terastalizes it into its secondary type, which is strong against your starter, meaning that having battled you so many times, she believes she can further ramp up the challenge and use whatever advantage she can get to defeat you.
Unlike most land Pokémon, Pikachu has a swim animation. Why? It's a call-back to early Pikachu's ability to surf!
Eevee and all but one of its evolutions can also swim. Due to its DNA being erratic, there is always going to be the Vaporeon instinct to swim. The exception is Flareon, who is on the wrong end of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors here; so even if it's able to swim it's more comfortable on the same platform that other non-aquatic Pokémon use. In fact, when you use Synchro Machine in the Terarium, you can swim as all other Eeveelutions, but Flareon will immediately flee onto dry land if you waddle too far.
Penny's team of Eeveelutions lacks two out of eight of the evolutions, Espeon and Glaceon. Given her reclusive nature, it is unlikely that she would be out in the daytime to evolve an Eevee as opposed to the nighttime. Additionally, the Glasseado mountains are usually considered dangerous and her reclusive nature also means that she wouldn't go out of her way to find an Ice Stone there to evolve her Eevee to Glaceon, and the Leaf Stone is more accessible and less dangerous to acquire in comparison.
- She also has two moves of those types, Psychic and Ice, as coverage on Umbreon and Vaporeon. This either informed her decision on what types of Eeveelution to have on her team and which to leave out, or was a response to said deficiencies.
- All of the Eeveelutions Penny does have also are useful to her shut-in lifestyle. Leafeon is basically a walking air freshener, Vaporeon can provide the water she needs for her ramen, Flareon can heat the ramen, Jolteon is a backup power source if the power goes out, Umbreon is a source of light if she wants to keep the lights off, and Sylveon is very useful to calm her down from any social anxiety.
- If she evolved her Eevees back home in Galar, the same logic still applies for Glaceon. Ice Stones can only be found in the Crown Tundra, the Wild Area, and Route 9. The Tundra and Wild Area are obvious - reclusive Penny wouldn't take the risk - and it's possible that Penny lives far enough away from Route 9 that she wouldn't bother to go there. By contrast, a Leaf Stone can be acquired through Poke Jobs, which Penny could have sent her Eevees on in order to get them some fresh air while she recovered from being a shut-in.
Unlike Legends: Arceus, your character can't take damage/get knocked out from a long fall — which manifests as the character pulling out their phone and floating just before the sudden impact with the ground. How does this work? Simple: The phone is a Rotom phone, and Rotom's ability is Levitate.
All of Penny's team know either Quick Attack or Baby-Doll Eyes. While the former is a common enough coverage move in a variety of franchise mediums, if not necessarily a first choice on a major team, Baby-Doll Eyes is a bit less common. Why do they all know that move? Well, it seems that they are, at least partially, Penny's pets, and Puppy Eyes are commonly a tactic used by real world cats and dogs to get their owners to feed them treats. Penny's entire team is trained to do that to Penny. And Penny either lets them do that (and not replace the move) or her issues with direct confrontations mean that she can't tell them to knock it off (and thus they keep the move and make a bit of a joke about move slots out of it).
- On Quick Attack, Quick Attack is a major move in the anime, where Ash in particular favors it or its similar equivalents on many of his teams. Penny is also shown to be a big media nerd, including for anime, and Ash has been hinted to exist as a character, if not a person, in the game universe via the Abandoned Thrifty Mart. Perhaps Penny is a fan of Ash the fictional character.
If you challenge the Gyms by order of strength, Geeta will appear to talk to the player character after they defeat Larry, who also happens to be forced to act as an Elite Four member by Geeta. Subtle foreshadowing.
- It's also entirely possible that Geeta was there to gauge which Gym Leader she could get to act in such a capacity to begin with, leading her to pick Larry when she saw him beginning to soar in his battle with the player.
- Another alternative which also crosses over with Fridge Horror: Larry is actually also an Elite Four, and we know some Gym Leaders are specifically ordered by Geeta to go easy on challengers, meaning that while Larry isn't officially the strongest Gym Leader, he's actually a lot more powerful than the public knows. Why would Geeta station such a powerful trainer in Medali? Because Medali is the closest city to the Zero Gate, which is officially the only path linking the Great Crater of Paldea and the rest of the region... and by the time of the Gym challenge, there has been a confirmed report of a Paradox Pokémon escaping the Great Crater. By stationing Larry in Medali, Geeta likely hopes that he can serve as a gatekeeper to subdue any other Paradox Pokémon attempting to get out.
Since the Raidon are constantly traveling with the protagonist, it can seem like they're breaking the "Six Pokémon per trainer" rule of the series. But during the finale, it's revealed that their Poké Ball is actually registered to Professor Sada/Turo, so technically they never "belong" to the protagonist.
- Alternatively, it's in line with the explanation for the six Pokémon limit provided in Pokémon Adventures: it's an established best practice rather than a strict requirement. Having more than six Pokémon on hand can be incredibly difficult to manage, but it can be done in some circumstances. It can also explain that upon getting the ability to switch between Ride Mode and Battle Mode post-game, the player's befriended the Raidon shows the Original Trainer as the player themselves in their summary instead of Sada/Turo, as well as the date when they first met around the time the Raidon rescued the player in Inlet Grotto.
Out of all the type specialists in this game, Rika's appearance matches her type specialty the least. But there are other reasons why it works:
- Her aversion (or at the very least downplaying) of Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance puts the player at an information disadvantage when they face her for the first time. A Champion-rank trainer should be ready for surprises.
- Her use of Ground-types is a subtle case of Personality Powers. She's the most grounded of the Elite Four.
When a trainer Terastallizes their Pokémon, the trainer animation shows them caught off guard at how strong the power is and visibly struggling to hold the ball. This isn't limited to smaller trainers like Arven, but Elite Four Members and Champions. There are only two exceptions, and one of them is the Player. Given that the Player is the youngest Champion in Paldea, it's no surprise that they're able to understand how strong Terastallization can be, and how to handle such strength. Notably, they don't hold up the Orb in front of themselves like everyone else, but hold it upwards.
- It also might be a nod to "us". We're used to gimmicks at this point (Megas, Z-Moves, Dynamax), so the player character having no trouble makes sense because we know what to do at this point.
- That other exception is Kieran, who, although he holds his Tera Orb in front of himself, holds it in a slouched position with his arm bent and barely reacts to it. He's the only character who neither straightens their arm nor use both hands—even the Player holds it with a straight arm. This demonstrates that not only has he mastered Terastallization, considering he's also the only non-type specialist to not match Tera types with their Pokémon, but his listless facial expression suggests he sees Terastallization only as a means to an end: to defeat you, the Player.
The Paradox Pokémon all have Dex entries that speak of them in vague terms, referencing paranormal magazines, stating how there is almost no record of them, etc. Further, they make no direct mention of the Great Crater despite there being whole populations of Paradox Pokémon present in Area Zero. The brilliance behind this lies in how Clavell stated that what the protagonist did in Area Zero, what they found, etc. must remain a secret. Pokédex entries are a matter of public record, so they can't mention anything about what exists in the crater.
The Way Home:
- Area Zero upon the first visit is very linear, as you're forced to descend into the crater on foot. It's said in game that all roads lead to the great crater, which houses Area Zero, so you're essentially railroaded to going there by the end of the game. What does that make The Way Home and perhaps the entire game as a result? A story about four friends walking down a set of railroad tracks, one of the very first references made in the entire series. Fridge Tearjerker kicks in when you know what the friends are meant to discover at the end of the story. As pointed out by one of the commenters here in relation to the AI Professors:
KitKatBlackCat:Ok, so Arven mentions right before jumping into the Great Crater that the professor is 'railroading' them. The group consists of four people. All the way back in Red and Blue, if you check the TV in your room, the description mentions a film about four friends travelling down railroad tracks. This is a reference to the film Stand by Me. And what is it that the characters are searching for in that movie? A dead body.
- Other evil Pokémon teams (excluding Skull, Yell, and Star) have complex technology that aid in the capture and control of Pokémon, but the Professor is the first in the game series that employs technology that shuts down any Poké Balls that aren't registered to said professor. Why wouldn't the other teams utilize this technology in their own bases? Well, that's the thing: unlike the Professor, who is well-known and respected, the other Pokémon teams have enemies. Enemies that could theoretically use that same system to lock down Pokéballs registered in the evil team's database. It's far less risky to have a bunch of battle-capable Grunts than an advanced system that could potentially shut down your entire operation.
The Medali Gym's challenge is known to be very convoluted, and requires you to run around collecting clues for what's essentially a password, while other Gyms have much more straightforward challenges. It's likely that Larry came up with this in the hopes that trainers would get bored or frustrated and give up before reaching the battle, meaning he doesn't have to spend as much time fighting when he could be focusing on his other jobs or relaxing from them.
- It could also be a reflection of his personality and type specialty. What better way for a Normal-type salaryman to express what it means to be a professional Pokémon trainer than to send prospective gym challengers on a roundabout Fetch Quest only to have them find that what you end up with is a simple and modest dish with just a little dash of something special to help it truly stand out.
The reason the player can't change from the school uniform is because they need other people to know they are from the Academy. Obviously anyone can claim to be part of the most respected school in Paldea, so to avoid swindlers it's best to wear something identifiable.
- Or maybe the player character is just especially proud of belonging to such a respected institution.
- Or this is just a field trip situation. They don't want anybody going missing while out on this massive field trip, so they have you follow the school dress code even while off-site. This might also be why the outfits are so garishly colored.
While Professor Sada looking younger than Professor Turo might just be artistic preference, it is also thematic. Sada, who focuses on ancient Paradox Pokémon, looks like she's not aged, while the older Turo, who does look old enough to have a teen son, focuses on future Paradox Pokémon.
The three storylines in the game are each their own adventures, each themed with word that relates to the semantic field of journeying, departure, movement (from a place to another): Victory Road, Path of Legends, Starfall Street. After you travel up that road, venture through the path, and head down that street, you have to find The Way Home.
A very small detail, but most of the Elite Four members' eye colours match their names: Rika's are a dark red, matching the colour paprika is usually found as (as well as chili, her Japanese name); Poppy's eyes are black like poppy seeds; Hassel's are the same as the hassaku orange he's named after.
Arven being willing to wager the Box Legendary's custody on a battle, despite knowing his sole battling Pokémon at the moment isn't very strong, makes a lot of sense after playing through the game. Arven eventually admits that he's always resented the Raidon and on some level blamed it for his parent's absence, despite knowing that it wasn't truly the Pokémon's fault. He probably saw the dragon, saw that it had met and begun to bond with a new student, and was glad for an excuse to not be responsible for it anymore.
The second of the Box Legendaries has an in-universe explanation for why it would obey you and for where you find it to capture it. Aside from the gameplay explanation of "the player has enough badges", it originally drove your bike the Raidon away in a territorial battle and claimed Area Zero for itself, but was defeated in the rematch, meaning your Legendary — which has befriended you throughout the game — can "order" it to behave until its friendship grows high enough that it will want to do so on its own. As for why it never left the Area Zero crater, it was defeated, but the victor never stayed to claim the location, and it never had left the crater, unlike your Raidon, and quite possibly didn't know it could, and so it was lying low in a familiar location until you returned and captured it.
Every time you face Nemona, the camera is angled as though you're looking up at her. Not that she's looking down at you, but she does have more experience than you, being a Champion-ranked trainer and all. This changes for her final battle, where the camera is angled as though you're looking at her head on — you did just defeat Geeta and become a Champion level trainer yourself after all, so in her eyes, you're now equals.
- The original angle when facing Nemona returns, starting in Mochi Mayhem and onwards. Facing her outside of her final battle and the Ace Academy Tournament has her temporarily possessed by Pecharunt, but she treats it as a realistic dream of wanting to face the player in battle after being freed from its control. Subsequent rematches done in the League Club, she is invited as a special coach, in which she, as an experienced battler, would be teaching Blueberry Academy students as she has been hired to do by the player.
None of the Paradox Pokémon have evolutions or pre-evolutions because most of them are based in forms without a known evolution, either legendary mons or final forms.
- There are three exception to the rules: the Past mons Sandy Shocks (Magneton), Scream Tail (Jigglypuff), and Flutter Mane (Misdreavus). Aside from not being fully-evolved and having forms introduced after their debut Generation, they all evolve by stone. It's possible that in the ancient past, their evolution stones simply didn't exist.
Since the Paradox Pokémon are extremely strong and aggressive, it makes sense why certain Pokémon can survive in Area Zero while others can't. Such as:
- Flying-types, or Pokémon capable of flight like Venomoth. Area Zero is littered with cliffsides and sharp drops, making it difficult to traverse. Naturally, Pokémon with the ability to fly have an advantage. If they are harassed by another Pokémon, they can easily fly to another area. Corviknight would survive in particular, as they're incredibly bulky and their natural predator, Tinkaton, is nowhere to be found.
- Pokémon who cluster together. Meditite, Pawniard, Dreepy, Girafarig, and Pawmi among others all form groups around an evolved Pokémon of their line. This protects them a lot better than if they were alone.
There's another good reason why Paradox Pokémon are so aggressive. In Legends: Arceus, all Pokémon that are brought to Hisui through a time rift are immediately aggressive with the player, despite being from a time period where they'd be acclimated to humans. Being ripped forward or backward in time and thrown into a strange environment leads to more aggressive behavior from Pokémon.
Also, when it specifically comes to the past Paradox Pokémon in Scarlet, Legends: Arceus establishes that Pokémon used to be much more aggressive/wary towards humans in the past. Legends: Arceus is likely around 100-200 years before the events of the present games, so of course Pokémon from even further back in time are even more aggressive than that.
Each of your friends is focused on a different form of time.
- Penny wants to atone for what she did as Cassiopiea in the past.
- Arven wants to focus on the present problems at hand, such as his Mabosstiff or finding his parents.
- Nemona wants to have the player be the best rival she has, something that's a future prospect.
- The fact that the player is able to tackle all three routes and not a single one shows that the while all three of them are stuck on that one aspect (Penny's trapped in her past sins, Arven only caring about the now, and Nemona too busy focusing on the future) and it's you who is able to break them out of those loops and bring them together to move forward, towards Area Zero, a route that combines all aspects: With a mistake being made in the past that has consequences in the present that will eventually destroy the future.
The hijacked AI Professors sending out Paradox Volcaronas as your first enemy in the final boss fight is a subtle nod to The Bible if you recall the original professors' obsession with creating a paradise. In the Bible, after God cast out Adam and Eve from Eden, He appointed an angel carrying a Flaming Sword as a bouncer (Archangel Uriel is commonly cited as the angel in question). Putting aside the fact that Slither Wing is not Fire-type, Volcarona is commonly agreed to have an angelic design, in particular looking like the fiery seraphim. Thus, a fiery angel serves as your receptionist during your invasion to paradise. Furthermore, when you return to Area Zero after you finish the main-game quest, you'll find that Paradox Volcaronas litter the upper layers of the place, making them the first Paradox Pokémon you find if you go down the crater on foot instead of using your Raidons to just jump into the center. Thus, once again, fiery angels serve as your welcome committee as you make your way back to the depths.
- Speaking of angels and depths, how fitting is it that the Pokémon region that's based on the most Catholic/Christian European Country thus far has You the protagonist, accompanied by a companion who used to stay there, descend what look like concentric circles with slopes down into the depths of the earth, encountering denizens from alternate worlds until you find the entity who caused this all, figuratively and literally at the center, unable to leave because they tried to challenge the natural order that Arceus put in place? Bonus, the whole operation is called the Paradise Protection Protocol.
Throughout the game, you only interact with Sada/Turo via phone calls, instead of directly meeting them at a lab somewhere like most professors. This is because they literally can't leave Area Zero, which works as some clever Foreshadowing.
The music for Area Zero incorporates synths and a theremin, as well as tribal sounding drums, evoking both a feel of both the future and the past at the same time, perfectly fitting all of the time-displaced Paradox Pokémon who roam about.
The sizes of bags your rivals carry is interestingly indicative of their emotional baggage.
- Carefree, battle-crazed Nemona yearns for a rival to match her, but is otherwise free of more depressing problems. She carries a small slingbag.
- Not only Penny was bullied in the past, but her attempt to gather like-minded friends to stand up against bullies backfired and nearly caused said friends to be expelled from the school, and she has been shouldering this burden for over a year. She carries an Eevee backpack that is a fair bit larger than Nemona's slingbag.
- Arven grew up without even seeing his parents for years, meaning that he had to take care of himself all that time, and his only companion Mabostiff nearly got killed after an expedition gone wrong. And as if this past misery is not enough, he then finds out that his parents are already dead, their research nearly causes a catastrophe, and then after having a short reunion with his parents via their AI replica, he has to watch said AI leave for the safety of Paldea. Arven's backpack is comparatively huge as if to reflect this.
You might think at first that the forms that the Raidon regain after beating each Titan are unrelated to the capabilities of the titan. However, think about it for a short while, and you'll realize that each ability isn't mimicking the capabilities of the titan you fight; it's to counter them. Best way to avoid a thing dropping rocks on you? Dive into the water, where the projectiles will be too slow to hit you. Best way to avoid a thing charging around on the ground? Take to the air. Something climbing around and liable to drop on you? Be prepared to dart out of the way at a moment's notice. Something in the ground? Get ready to jump out of the way. Something in the water? Climb a cliff to get away from the water. And all this because the Raidon is trying to avoid getting into a fight; something it doesn't stop trying to do until the end of the game, where there's absolutely no option but to stand and fight, at which point it finally decides to use its battle form.
During your rematch, Katy mentions that she's glad that she's able to use her whole power against you this time, since she usually has to hold back because she has the label of "first gym" stuck to her to give beginners a fair fighting chance. Her Terastallized Pokémon the first time around is a Teddiursa, an adorable and non-threatening teddy bear of a Pokémon. The second time around, it's an Ursaring, a giant bear that's more than capable of seriously harming humans and Pokémon — she finally can go all in on you and show her competitive side, instead of being sweet and non-threatening.
Scarlet and Violet Dummied Out a few more moves that weren't already excluded from Sword and Shield, and one of the freshly-axed moves this time around is Eternabeam, Eternatus's second signature move (though Dynamax Cannon remains available). As it turns out, however, there is a good in-universe reason for this. Recall that the Dynamax phenomenon only happens in Galar because Eternatus has been there for a very long time, with its power leaking out of its seal and spreading throughout the region. Eternatus normally can't Dynamax itself, but it does have a special Eternamax form that requires it to re-absorb an obscene amount of its energy to use — so much energy that it can hardly even control itself, which is why Zacian and Zamazenta had to seal it away in the first place (it was driving itself and other Pokémon berserk), and the player using Eternamax Eternatus themselves is out of the question. When using Eternabeam, Eternatus enters its Eternamax form for just long enough to gather its energy and release it in one massive blast, then returns to normal immediately. However, Paldea is not suffused with Dynamax energy like Galar is, so even if Eternatus is brought to Paldea, it can't even gather enough energy to transform for the few seconds it would need to fire Eternabeam, thus making that attack unusable.
Why does Penny give you Draco Meteor? Given how the Raidon reacted to her, it's likely she recognized the bond you have with it, and thus decided to give you Draco Meteor for it.
- For context regarding the bond: until Gen VIII, tutors will only teach the move to the compatible Pokémon at high friendship.
- The fact that meteors are 'falling stars' and you just helped her defeat Team Star, and defeated her, the founder of Team Star, may also have something to do with it.
- She also has no Pokémon that can learn it anyway — not a single Eeveelution is a Dragon-type, and so, it'd be better off in your hands.
The colors the main games are named after are a bright red (scarlet) and a deep reddish purple (violet). The colors associated with the DLC are a pale blue (teal) and a light bluish purple (indigo).
Penny's choice of Signature Mon, the cute fairy-type Sylveon might seem odd, given her gloomy personality and style, but it makes more sense when you realize that Penny is an otaku — Sylveon's design and behavior makes it reminiscent of the Magical Girl genre, which is very popular. Perhaps Penny is a fan, and decided that if she can't be more like the heroines of these shows, maybe at least one of her beloved Veevees can be.
- If Sylveon is taken as a Magical Girl, Penny herself can be seen as a Dark Magical Girl: She's actually a heroic character, but growing up miserable due to all the bullying causes her to collapse unto herself, with only her friends, Team Star, being the only ones to keep her mental health afloat if barely, and she's willing to fight figuratively tooth-and-nail at the cost of her own well-being to make sure her friends are safe. And once she's saved with friendship by the player character, she drops all her villainous acts and becomes a proper hero.
- Also, Sylveon is a Fairy-type. Penny is stated to be from Galar. In Galar, what is the Fairy-type max move? Max Starfall.
Speaking of Penny, she might also fulfill one of the series' character archetypes, that being "computer whiz who's associated with Eeveelutions", after Gen I's Bill (he gives the player an Eevee in Gen II games) and Gen IV's Bebe (who also gifts the player an Eevee in Platinum).
Unlike with Max Raid Battles, Tera Raid Battles will always guarantee a capture if a ball is thrown. It's explained how Tera Energy can boost the efficiency of machines, so when the Pokéball is gettng terastallized, it's getting its capture rate boosted.
Unlike the four research stations in Area Zero, including the damaged fourth station, Zero Lab at the very bottom of Area Zero doesn't have a teleporter, disallowing fast travel to and from Zero Lab. There are two possible scenarios here, both pertaining to said teleporter having been manually dismantled:
- Scenario one: Having grown increasingly paranoid in their last days, the original professor could have removed the teleporter from Zero Lab to prevent anyone from easily laying a hand on their magnum opus, the time machine, located inside said lab.
- Scenario two: The AI professor took advantage of that the lab can't be opened from the inside by removing the teleporter so that any Paradox Pokémon that comes in from the time machine cannot accidentally get out via the teleporter (proven by so many Paradox Pokémon immediately flooding out of Zero Lab as soon as our protagonists open the gate). In addition to preventing more Paradox Pokémon from occupying Area Zero before inevitably escaping to Paldea (especially since one of the teleporter's destinations is Zero Gate, which is outside Area Zero), even if those trapped Paradox Pokémon were to grow in number inside Zero Lab, they'll just kill one another owing to their built-in aggression.
Penny is the only student you meet at the academy who doesn't wear her school uniform. It's a visual hint towards her connection to Team Star, a group of renegade students whose squad leaders don't wear their uniforms either.
Altaria are known to comfort their trainers by enveloping them in their soft wings and singing gently to them. Hence, it's the Signature Mon of Grusha, who is implied to have lingering trauma from his snowboarding accident and the resulting Career-Ending Injury he received from it.
Perrin looks remarkably like Adaman from Legends Arceus. Adaman is the leader of the Diamond Clan who revere Dialga, a Pokémon associated with time as their Great Sinnoh. Perrin is a photographer, an occupation that requires capturing a single moment in time forever.
- However, Perrin's hair style more greatly resembles Irida's in that it's less wild and has a more inward curl. Her complexion is also similar to that of Irida's. A photographer may be required to cross vast lands and distances to get the photo they want or even simply that photos can show the happenings of faraway places.
- It'd make sense that Perrin would be descendant of either and both. As it fits both the theme of Past, Present, and Future the games have as well as Legends' theme of people coming together to solve problems they couldn't alone. Perrin is enlisting the player's help... just like her ancestor(s).
- Her profession, photography, also ties in to her ancestor(s), as not only is photography about capturing a space in a moment of time, but it also requires lots of patience (time) and spatial awareness.
Mela's true ace is Armarouge, one of the two final forms of Charcadet. Why does she have only Armarouge and not Ceruledge? Because Armarouge is known to be an honorable fighter in contrast to the more shifty Ceruledge, and thus Armarouge fits Mela better as she's forthright to the point of Brutal Honesty sometimes. And the identity of this Armarouge in question? Most likely Charlos, who Mela has a bond with.
Kieran gets more and more frustrated because he can't beat you. However, take a look at how often you two battle. Going by the day-night cycle on Kitakami, the entire main plot takes place over three or four days, and Kieran challenges you to a battle at almost every major step. That's not nearly enough time for him to improve substantially, especially if at this point you've beaten the main game and become a Champion. And losing that many times in short succession would be a lot harder to swallow.
Carmine's team references different aspects of her personality and background:
- Mightyena is outwardly intimidating, like she is towards the player at first.
- Ninetales might reference her Proud Beauty status or her literal fiery personality.
- Leavanny is very caring towards other Pokémon, especially its pre-evolutions like she is towards Kieran.
- Sinistcha can (as of its debut) only be found in Kitakami, referencing how proud she is of her homeland.
- Morpeko's ability makes it shift between being angry and calm with each turn, just how Carmine is quick to anger, but also cools off relatively fast.
Likewise, Kieran's final team also reflects who he is, or rather, who he's becoming by the end of the story:
- Shiftry represents him casting off his façade of meekness and revealing the darker side of his personality.
- Gliscor's Hyper Cutter ability makes it immune to Attack-weakening effects, emphasizing his refusal to be seen as weak.
- Yanmega's ability is Tinted Lens, which reflects his distorted views towards people, such how he interprets Carmine and the player's secrecy about Ogerpon as personal mockery. It's also classified as the Ogre-Darner Pokemon in English, and in the original Japanese is inspired by the jumbo dragonfly (known in Japan as the oni Yanma), so when combined with its greater power, it makes a lot of sense for him to keep it.
- Probopass is stated to always face north, matching his refusal to see things any other way.
- Poliwrath opens with Belly Drum to max out its Attack at the cost of half its HP, reflecting how his obsession for strength is becoming self-destructive.
- Dipplin represents his childishness. As it can get Defense and Special Defense boosts from holding Eviolite, it's implied to not be finished evolving, which can also represent how Kieran's descent to darkness is not yet finished.
When Carmine first battles you, her Mightyena has not yet evolved from a Poochyena, which is overlevelled due to scaling. This is a subtle commentary on her relationship with Kieran, whose growth and Secretly Selfish side are overshadowed by Carmine's Big Sister Bully tendencies until the player starts Defrosting the Ice Queen.
While Perrin's Growlithe isn't much of a fighter, he is correct in being afraid of facing Bloodmoon Ursaluna. Not only does it have strong attack stats, it's still part Ground, and Hisuian Growlithe has a quadruple weakness to Ground-type moves.
The Loyal Three's resurrection in The Teal Mask receives no direct explanation, but an eagle-eyed viewer may notice that when Kieran punches the monument, for a brief moment a cloud of purple energy can be seen at the point of contact (the pillar of light that accompanies the revival being the same color), giving us just enough to go off of that Kieran is indeed somehow linked to all this.
In-game, all of the Loyal Three are strong against Grass-type Pokémon due to being Poison-types, and Ogerpon's natural movepool consists mostly of Grass and Fighting moves, which Poison-types resist. Furthermore, Ogerpon only fought the Loyal Three after they stole the Wellspring, Hearthflame, and Cornerstone Masks, so Ogerpon couldn't have used a non-Grass-type Ivy Cudgel against them. So how did Ogerpon beat the Loyal Three? Well, she does have access to Leech Seed, Synthesis, and Spiky Shield in her level-up movepool, so she could have outlasted them, but given that Toxic Chain would make the Loyal Three better Gradual Grinders than Ogerpon, all three can hit her with super-effective Poison STAB moves, and the accounts of the battle we're given in-game paint a picture of Ogerpon beating the Loyal Three to a pulp rather than slowly draining and parrying them to death, this probably isn't how it went down. In terms of direct offense, however, Ogerpon does have a handful of Normal-type moves (Quick Attack, Retaliate^noteRetaliate in particular is an attack that doubles its damage if an ally fainted the previous turn. And Ogerpon's companion didn't faint, he was murdered, so the usual limitations on the move wouldn't necissarily apply, and Slam) and one Dark-type move (Throat Chop) early on in her movepool. She could have relied on those moves, and Munkidori (a Psychic-type, which is weak to Dark-type moves) would have quickly fallen to Ogerpon's physical might (particularly if she used Throat Chop on it), but Okidogi and Fezandipiti are Fighting- and Fairy-type, respectively, meaning that they resist Dark and would still have given Ogerpon a very hard time. However, Ogerpon is also stated to have had a human companion and close friend, who the Loyal Three implicitly killed, which is what drove Ogerpon on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It's possible that said human companion taught Ogerpon Zen Headbutt or Stomping Tantrum (which she can learn by TM) in order to help her defend herself against Poison-types, and indeed, she could have used either of those moves to swiftly bring Okidogi and Fezandipiti down^noteOkidogi is 4x weak to Psychic, so Zen Headbutt could easily overcome its decent Defense stat, and Fezandipiti's stat spread is more of a Mage Killer than a physical brawler, so Ogerpon would have a statistical advantage in a straight-up physical brawl and could use either Zen Headbutt or Stomping Tantrum to good effect. If Ogerpon used a move that her human companion taught her in order to avenge his demise at the hands of the Loyal Three, that would make her victory against them all the sweeter.
- On a related note, after seeing the Ogerpon battle, it's possible the main reason the Kitakami villagers feared Ogerpon, was because she managed to Terastallize on her own after losing her Trainer. Remember that the villagers have seen Ogerpon and her Trainer wearing their masks before, and said masks already had Tera Crystals embedded in them. Now imagine the villagers seeing a giant glowing version of one of those masks killing 3 Pokémon they've never seen before and it's easy to see why they remember Ogerpon as a demon, and is another point on why she was able to win against the Loyal Three.
- Alternatively, The Power of Friendship can give Pokemon a number of boosts in battle: more crits, surviving hits on 1HP, dodging attacks, expelling poison, etc. That's under normal circumstances. Ogerpon's rampage wasn't a normal circumstance - her human friend had just been murdered. It's possible that she was just tanking and/or dodging attacks constantly, doing far more critical hits than normal, and expelling the poison before it could even hurt her. After all, a similar thing happens in the main story, with -raidon being unable to lose the final fight because of its strong bond with you.
For the 7 generations before this one to feature breeding^noteexcluding Gen 1 for obvious reasons, it's been something of a Running Gag among fans how the Day Care couple never seems to know how an egg got there when a male and female Pokémon breed (or any breedable Pokémon and a Ditto). As of this generation, however, our picnic serves as the Day Care, and a basket distributes the eggs. You can watch your Pokémon do absolutely nothing with one another all picnic long, and an egg still pops up in the basket, sometimes multiples. Seems we owe over 20 years' worth of old men some apologies.
While we may never know the exact reason why Dendra is friends with Tulip aside from them being Childhood Friends, Dendra's friendship with Miriam has a more mundane reason: Dendra is the teacher of Battle Studies, essentially the Pokémon version of Physical Education, and moreso than real-life PE where students may get cramps or bruises from physical exercises, Battle Studies involves actual Pokémon battling in a controlled environment, which means there's always going to be Pokémon being injured, thus Dendra will meet Miriam a lot to deal with many fainted Pokémon (Miriam even says that she'll heal your Pokémon after battling her in Academy Ace Tournament). And from these frequent meetings Dendra eventually get to know Miriam well enough to bond with her; think of it as some kind of Florence Nightingale Effect.
- In BB League conversations, Miriam tells Jacq that Dendra gets scraped up quite a lot. So the previous guess that Dendra meets up with Miriam to heal students' Pokémon is not quite the full picture, but the dialogue does reinforce the Florence Nightingale Effect which led to the two becoming close.
The BB Elite Four all use Poké Balls and one Pokémon that doesn't match their practicing type, which all fit them:
- Crispin uses Quick Balls because he's very excitable, and his Exeggutor has the Hidden Ability Harvest, which automatically gives back it's berry item under sunlight, fitting Crispin's sun team strategy and the illusion of eating over and over. Being a cook, his use of Quick Balls may also be a Stealth Pun on "fast food."
- Amarys uses Heavy Balls, since Steel types are usually the heaviest Pokémon ever, a fact that she also mentions to you after you trade Pokémon with her. Her Renuniclus fits her rather analytical personality, and has Trick Room to let her slow Pokémon move first.
- Lacey loves cute things, so she uses Nest Balls since most cute Pokémon are low leveled unevolved Pokémon. Her Galarian Slowbro can also be seen as cute, and packs some moves for type coverage.
- Drayton is the exception and only uses normal Poke Balls, but it fits given his slacker personality. Or alternatively, his use of normal Poke Ball may also tie to his actually-incredible battling skill; While his fellow Elite Four use Poke Balls that have increased capture rate against certain targets and/or under certain conditions, Drayton still manages to catch several powerful Pokémon with the weakest Pokeball.^note Sceptile on the other hand could actually Mega Evolve to be part Dragon-type back in the day and is in the Dragon egg group, so it fits as well.
In The Indigo Disk, Kieran's Dipplin has evolved into Hydrapple, which happens after it learns the move Dragon Cheer. The only way for it to learn Dragon Cheer is via a TM that can only be obtained after defeating Drayton of the BB Elite Four. By the time you fight Kieran, he's the BB League Champion.
- Champions also get a Master Ball upon earning the title. Now we know where he got it from.
One might wonder when the player character returns to Area Zero, along with Kieran, Carmine, and Briar, why Nemona, Penny, and Arven couldn't make the trip with them considering their history and connection to the place. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. The first journey down into Area Zero was completely illegal and unsanctioned by the Pokemon League due to it being too dangerous, and the only reason why they made the descent in the first place was borne out of necessity to try and rescue the professor. Penny and Arven aren't exactly on the same level as the player character and Nemona, especially since the former has been skipping school and neglecting her studies. Meanwhile this time, unlike the last journey, this is an official expedition into Area Zero, and Geeta wants to find strong trainers that she can trust can handle themselves. Kieran and the protagonist are seasoned battlers having both been Champions in their own right, and Carmine is no slouch either.
Meloetta's requirements are very odd, but actually very fitting. The spinning is you doing a ballet spin, and the camera filter is actually a Call-Back to the event that allows Meloetta to learn Relic Song in her game of origin: the singer mentioned played a song from his sepia-toned memories.
The BB Elite Four members are ranked a bit oddly, with each member's type being weak to the type used by the person below them (Crispin is #4 despite having Fire-types to take on #3 Amarys's Steel-types, and so on). This actually shows the player how strong and strategic they are, and how they won't be easily beaten just due to a type advantage.
- Each member of the BB Elite Four has a type specialty that has an effective type advantage against another member (Crispin's Fire is strong to Amarys's Steel, which is strong to Lacey's Fairy, which is strong to Drayton's Dragon, which resists Crispin's Fire). This is a sort of imperfect version of the proper Unova Elite Four from the Black and White games, each of whom is super-effective to another member (Dark beats Ghost beats Psychic beats Fighting beats Dark).
The Paradox Professor, the one brought to the present by Terapagos, explains that they were searching for a way to travel between timelines. This explains a few things as the timelines do not necessarily need to be lined up which would allow the Paradox Pokemon to be brought to the main universe of the game, nor do they need to have the same outcome as the main timeline as we see with the Paradox Professor coming from a timeline where they traded away their respective books for Briar's white book compared to the Main Professor who somehow had possession of both books at once. This means:
- The Raidon's and the other paradox pokemon are still paradoxes, merely in the sense as versions of existing pokemon from other timelines (Past and Future) that shouldn't exist in the world they were brought into.
- The 'Time' Machine functions very similarly to Link Cable of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire's Delta Episode which also dealt with timelines and worlds.
When you first see Carmine and Kieran in Teal Mask, you may notice that they have a similar Pokéball throwing style, only that because Kieran is a shy boy then, his throw is relatively clumsy compared to Carmine. In Indigo Disk, you then find out there's one more person who has that particular throwing style: Amarys, who happens to be Carmine's only friend and also cares enough about Kieran to be distressed by his change of behavior. Given Amarys' high position in the BB League, it can be surmised that Carmine looks up to her to the point that she copies Amarys' throwing style, with Kieran then copying Carmine in response.
Why are you unable to catch Pokémon without a battle in these games when it was possible in Legends Arceus? It's been implied at various points throughout the series that wild Pokémon encounters in prior games were a test of worthiness by the encountered Pokémon, and Hisui's uniqueness in being able to both catch Pokémon unaware and be attacked can be explained by the ritual falling into disuse by the time of Legends, when it would've certainly been reestablished by the time of these games. This can be corroborated by how the only Pokémon we see caught outside of a battle in contemporary games (i.e., Terapagos) was able to break the Poké Ball it was caught in: the steps that are usually done when catching Pokémon hadn't been followed.
Terapagos has a 50% male, 50% female gender ratio, yet the single available Terapagos is gender locked as always male. It's possible Terapagos was actually the last of its kind, similar to Lonesome George, the last known living Pinta Island tortoise, upon which Terapagos took its inspiration from.
Carmine lying to Kieran about Ogerpon is more understandable since aside from the wild Pokémon, the Ogre's Den is located in a high area of the mountain in which he has to follow a narrow path without guardrails in the dark, not to mention the fact he lacks a Rotom Phone that would break his fall if he does fall off.
Cyrano's offer for you to invite Paldean trainers as coaches to Blueberry League may stem from the fact that, as a friend of Clavell, he is most certainly aware that Paldean trainers engage in single battles (Ryme being an exception), something his students probably aren't well-versed at since BB students exclusively do double battles. Thus, he hopes that the Paldean trainers can coach his students in the way of single battles to expand their expertise.
The secret event at the Crystal Pool has been foreshadowed not just by the professor's journal in the Underdepths, but also the Scarlet/Violet book. On one page, Heath mentioned "speaking with someone in an unfamiliar place" and "holding the page shown here, the handwriting is [his] own but [he has] no memory of writing this". Like Sada/Turo, he likely was transported to the Crystal Pool and spoke to someone who handed him a manuscript his future self wrote (hence, his own handwriting but without memory of having written those). After all, this "time travel" (using the term loosely as Alternate Timeline is in effect) is caused by Terapagos, and Heath did encounter Terapagos.
Kieran brings back his Poliwrath in Mochi Mayhem, but the rest of his team stays the same. While he no longer is seeking only power, it makes sense for him to stick to his A-team when he's faced with another dangerous situation.
After possessing most of Mossui Town, Pecharunt heads for Loyalty Plaza. No doubt it was trying to revive the Loyal Three to give itself more of an advantage over Kieran and the player, unaware that they've been revived already, and even if the player hasn't captured them, they station themselves far from Loyalty Plaza.
Kieran's BB League Champion team includes Grimmsnarl and Incineroar, two Pokemon that are not only infamously good in the official VGC Doubles format, showing that he's done his research, but they're also Dark-types— which are often reserved for antagonists. His descent into madness has him go from face to heel, complete with the actual heel Pokemon Incineroar.
Lacey first fights you with Plusle, Minun, and her signature Excadrill when you get introduced to Blueberry Academy. You'd think that she would be an Electric-type specialist then, with the curveball of her Ground/Steel Excadrill (which, considering her father's specialty type, would make sense). But, she's actually a Fairy-type specialist when you fight her. Not only is this to tell you to expect the unexpected and that any good trainer should be able to deal with any type matchup, but Fairy-types are known for their trickery and deception. If you bring in say, a Dragon-type against her thinking she would just use her Plusle and Minun again or even other Electric-types, you're in for quite a surprise.
Miriam's ace being Toxapex actually makes sense given that she's a medical staff, a profession who regularly deals with health and sickness in most cases, and even life and death in more serious cases. Toxapex is Water/Poison, water representing life and health (remember to always drink water, people), while poison representing sickness which may bring death if not treated. Or to put it in another way, as a medical staff she's well-versed in health (Water) and sickness (Poison). The reason she terastalizes her Toxapex into Poison-type is that she does so in a friendly match, and there she wants to take down her opponent first with Poison, with the healing with Water coming later after the fight.
The hints that Peony is Penny's father does have a subtle, if funny link between her, him, and Peonia. Peonia's ace is Tyrantrum, a Rock and Dragon Type. Penny's ace Veevee is Sylveon, a Fairy-type. Peony's type specialty are Steel-type Pokemon, which are super-effective against both. You could say that their father embarrassing them is their weakness.
Larry could be interpreted as a Good Counterpart to Giovanni. They are both middle-aged men with short dark hair who wear business suits, and they are both intended to be surprise gym leaders, with Giovanni's name not being on the Viridian Gym's sign and Larry's face portrait being of the back of his head. They are also both supposed to be more cynical adults compared to the younger player characters. However, in other ways they are opposites, because Larry not only isn't evil, but he also is an overworked employee as opposed to Giovanni being a mob boss. They even have this dynamic with their preferred Pokemon types. Larry prefers Normal types but uses Flying as his secondary type, while Giovanni prefers Ground types but also has notable Normal type Pokemon like Persian (as shown in that card) and Kangaskhan. Larry's Flying types even are immune to Ground type attacks, so if they battled, he would probably have the type advantage.
Arven's statement that spicy food flushes out toxin from the body via sweat is a long-since-disproven myth. This is not a case of Arven not doing his research: Take note that he reads that information in Scarlet/Violet book, whose contents were first written centuries ago, before the sweat myth was scientifically disproven. The fault thus lies in the book not being republished with newer findings and thus containing several cases of out-of-date information.

Fridge Horror

While shutting down the time machine might have stopped the flood of Paradox Pokémon for now, who's to say that someone else couldn't find out about the machine and end up exploiting it for their own unscrupulous gains? And it doesn't address the issue of the Paldea Crater still being absolutely filled with Paradox Pokémon ripe for the taking, or worse, leaving the controlled ecosystem and still being an ecological disaster on their own.
- Now, in game, the player can catch the Paradox Pokémon for themselves and avert said disaster, but if they make another main Generation IX game or a DLC add-on, they may retcon that the Paradox Pokémon were never chronologically caught…
- Additionally, at least one of the Paradox Pokémon managed to escape and eventually become a Titan, opening the doors for others to do so as well.
- Even if someone were to somehow find out about the time machine (which is most likely classified information), only a very strong Trainer would be able to reach the bottom of Area Zero on their own. The area is not only filled with high-level Pokémon, but highly aggressive, unfamiliar Paradox Pokémon whose strength is comparable to minor legendaries. Going in a group would lessen the danger, but it would require finding multiple competent Trainers who are willing to enter an area that’s meant to be strictly off-limits.
The fact that Paradox Pokemon existed at least 200 years before the time of the game, based on the Scarlet/Violet book. We know that the current Paradox Pokemon exist because of the Professor's time machine... but that was only completed ten years before the game began. Raises questions about how did Paradox Pokemon exist in Area Zero literally centuries before the time machine even existed.
- Terapagos is shown to summon a past/alternate version of Sada/Turo after the end of The Indigo Disk. Since Heath directly encountered Terapagos at one point, this does conveniently explain things such as how it's able to summon Paradox Pokémon. Though this raises the question of whether or not it's doing so intentionally, as well as whether the player's influence could lessen this.
There's something deeply unsettling about the fact that the Steel-type Elite Four Poppy, who may not even be old enough to even attend school, is already one of the strongest Trainers in Paldea and is on the Pokémon League's payroll. This is especially jarring in light of the region's focus on kids getting a proper education, and raises a lot of questions about her parents/guardians and the rest of the Elite Four.
- On a less horrifying interpretation, it's possible that they might have taken her away from overly controlling and strict parents, and essentially became surrogate family. They do generally seem to treat her as well as they can given the circumstances.
- It's also possible she's just a prodigy at battling, did/currently does attend the academy, and attained her rank quickly through pure skill. Bear in mind the protagonist is also pretty young and gets strong enough to beat Poppy and become Champion-ranked over the course of one Treasure Hunt (and however long they attended the academy before the Treasure Hunt started).
  - Poppy is confirmed to be 9 in the DLC, and mentions that she's planning on attending the Academy next year, but hadn't before because she was too strong of a trainer and didn't want to hurt anyone by mistake. Geeta offered her the position because of how powerful her Pokemon were. Much less grim than the original idea, but still kind of horrific that this little girl is separated from her peers by being too strong for her own good.
The Paradox Pokémon of Scarlet are extinct in the current timeline, but the ones from Violet are a taste of what's to come in the future. Given how aggressive and powerful they are, the future of the Pokémon universe seems rather bleak.
- To emphasize that point: Legends: Arceus showed that it was common for Pokémon to be much more aggressive in the past. Scarlet's Paradox Pokémon seem to come from an even more distant past, maybe one before humans even existed, so them being this aggressive is congruent with what we know about the Pokémon world so far. Raises questions about what happened — or rather, will happen — in the future that makes Violet's paradoxes so dangerous.
  - As a possibility, the actual future in Violet isn't bad, but the problem comes from that the Paradox Pokemon are REMOVED from that future. It may be that there's some kind of central network or core in that future that all of them SHOULD be connected to, but when they were yanked into the past, that connection was broken, so they're lashing out in a blind, frightened confusion because suddenly everything is WRONG.
Arven mentions that trauma may have given the Raidon a bad enough mental block to make it unable to battle. The ending seems to suggest that said trauma was from being attacked by its counterpart... but it's also possible that the trauma came from seeing the Professor, its caretaker, die right in front of it. And knowing they only sacrificed themselves because they were too weak to fight back and needed someone to protect them.
- Look at the Raidons' designs and overall concepts again. Koraidon is a physically-oriented fighting-type. Miraidon not only has powers of electricity, but also has fairly sharp-looking claws. Both of them have sharp teeth and whiplike tails. Even if it wasn't a direct mauling (i.e. structures in the lab may have simply fallen on them or exploded), the Professor's final moments were likely NOT a pretty sight...
- A horrific fridge brilliance here: In this game, Pokémon you catch yourself may still disobey you if they are overleveled unless you fulfill certain conditions; in your case, this means collecting gym badges. The violent Raidon is of higher level than the friendly one, thus it is more likely to disobey its owner, and one such rebellious episode led to the professor's death.
  - While the higher level may have contributed to the second Raidon being stronger, it’s probably just inherently more aggressive — seven gym badges only allows Pokémon up to level 55 to obey you before the level cap is removed with the eighth. The Raidon you befriend is level 68 when you finally use it in battle, and the aggressive one is level 72 — a fairly insignificant difference in levels, although we can’t say if their levels were different when the fight happened.
A meta example: Due to mechanics (needing to be present to be your Ride Pokémon), the Raidon you've spent the entire game with can't be placed in Pokémon HOME for movement to whatever games come later. You get to catch another example of the species that can. That means that your trusted companion must be left behind for good, while the one that already has a body count to its name gets to move forward.
KB Pokémon brings up a point on how Iono is not that happy in her streaming job. While Iono as a streamer isn't confirmed to be working under a company, it doesn't get better if she were working independently either. Even without any contract, social media stars need to be producing content at a very consistent quality and rate so that they maintain relevance which nets them their highest possible income. Regardless of whether she's contracted or not, Iono's likely working to the bone trying to keep her job stable, without much time to do what she wants to.
Iono: No idea when I'm gonna get to go, though. So I can't always take such liberational liberties.
- Iono's interaction with Grusha in Indigo Disk doesn't help. Grusha bluntly tells Iono that her latest contents have been mostly clickbaits to draw in views and sponsorship, but that's the thing: If she were to revert to her old self, she could lose all those sponsorship money for not showing "appropriate" contents.
At least in recent times, Penny's diet has been either mostly or exclusively instant noodles. They aren't exactly known to be the healthiest food on the planet. One would hope with her friends back in her life and a new friend in the protagonist, someone will get her to eat a more healthy diet.
- After completing Mochi Mayhem, Penny and Arven can have a conversation in the League Club room where Arven tries to get her to eat more vegetables. This at least confirms that her friends are trying to look out for her now... but it also confirms that she doesn't exactly have the best diet, especially since she just seems confused on why vegetables are important.
It may be for the best that Drampa cannot be found in the wild in Paldea. Considering the region's high number of bullies of various sorts combining with Drampa's Bully Hunter traits, they would've burned down the entire region long ago.
Interacting with the Tera Crystals within ruins of Research Station No. 4 will yield the flavor text: "These crystals seem to be eating into the research station...". So not only are those magical stones slowly growing on their own, but in the process they're slowly dissolving metal and concrete. That already doesn't bode too well, but think about what every major trainer in Paldea uses them for: temporarily making their Pokémon stronger by encasing them in a thin shell of those very crystals. Literally every single time we terastallize our Pokémon, we're a single mishap away from seriously injuring or killing them — and quite possibly the only person who knew was Professor Sada/Turo, inventor of the tech, who explicitly states in one of their journals to have only developed it in order to fund their research. The game doesn't exactly hide just how callous and obsessive the Professor was in the pursuit of their dream, but this...
- An additional point that may make this worse. The crystals where players engage with Tera Raids are surges of Terastal Energy from Area Zero causing crystal growth in Paldea itself. They are caused by surges of energy from Area Zero, and one is triggered during game to create the 5 and 6 star raids. Terastal energy seeps from the ground, and the fact that it seems to be temporary, and doesn't happen in the towns and cities, is the only thing that is preventing the spread of the above effect from Area Zero to the rest of Paldea.
When the AI fights the Player in the time machine, the AI professor takes visible damage. The damage doesn't disappear when it uses the time machine (though neither does the damage appear to hinder the AI's actions, so it may be quite minor). Now, think about it: AI Turo is heading to the future, where there would (presumably) be plenty of machinery and tools to fix himself with. In addition, he probably has enough time to set up an alternate power source to the Tera crystals. However, in Scarlet, AI Sada is heading to the distant past — so far back that the Pokémon appear prehistoric. If the time machine is indeed a time machine and not a wishing machine like many have theorized, then AI Sada isn't going to survive very long (presuming of course that the Tera Crystals that became a part of her body during the battle are not enough on their own to keep the AI functioning).
- Of course, the Crater having been around for a million years allows for some hope that Sada would be able to find more Tera Crystals where she ends up... still, while geological processes are slow, they aren't non-existent and Crystals 'could' be a relatively recent development.
Aside from their disapproval of the original professors' intent, the AI professors are essentially carbon copies of the original, complete with their memory, and so the AI still make some attempts to comfort Arven after finding out that his parents are gone. Paradise Protection Protocol, on the other hand, is a pure machine programmed to eliminate all threats to the time machine… including Arven. Whether this is simply just A.I. Is a Crapshoot at play, meaning that the professors nearly committed Accidental Murder on their own son from beyond the grave, or the professors having gone so completely unhinged in their last days that they probably forgot they have a son before passing over this final memory to Paradise Protection Protocol, the outcome isn't pleasant at all.
Just how did Arven's Mabosstiff get so grievously injured that even Pokémon Centers couldn't heal it? Well, regardless of which version of the game you're playing, there's at least two Fighting-type Paradox Pokémon and at least one Fairy-type Paradox Pokémon, at least one of which has a very high Attack stat and at least one of which has a very high Special Attack stat, and at least one of which has two type advantages against Dark-type Pokémon, and given the general aggression of Paradox Pokémon, they probably wouldn't be above dishing out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to anything that looked at them funny. And Arven isn't a particularly talented battler, so he might not have realized how outmatched his Mabosstiff was until it was knocked out by an angry Paradox Pokémon and it was still whaling on the hapless doggo (unlike your Player Character, who would have enough experience to know when their Pokémon was no longer able to fight and to retreat when all of their Pokémon had fainted). So the most likely course of events is that Arven got jumped by or accidentally picked a fight with a Slither Wing or Iron Valiant, his Mabosstiff tried to defend him, and the poor dog got beaten within an inch of its life for its trouble.
- It could very well be a completely different Pokémon than what the player can interact with. What's notable is that Arven rarely shows that he recognizes any of the Paradox Pokémon players get to fight in Area Zero, despite him boasting about and warning the other characters whenever he does recognize something.
- That said, the original guess (Slither Wing/Iron Valiant) still has merits if you assume that, unlike you, Arven never goes back into Area Zero once the time machine is shut down. Pay attention to the Paradox Pokémon you must battle during The Way Home: In Scarlet, you start with Scream Tail, then Great Tusk (who's fought twice), then Brute Bonnet, and finally Flutter Mane before you enter Zero Lab. In Violet, you start with Iron Bundle, then Iron Treads (also fought twice), then Iron Hands, and finally Iron Jugulis. When you battle against the AI Professors in Scarlet you face Slither Wing, Sandy Shocks, and Roaring Moon, and in Violet you face Iron Moth, Iron Thorns and Iron Valiant alone without your friends' help, including Arven, who only enter the scene after you beat Roaring Moon/Iron Valiant. Thus, it's not impossible that Arven indeed has never seen Slither Wing/Iron Valiant or the other ones you fight only in the final battle; even you only see them in droves after you shut down the time machine.
The mere fact that Great Tusk/Iron Treads managed to escape from Area Zero and find itself a place to reside. It's the only Paradox Titan you will encounter, but its intimidating design and typing might throw you off at first. Also, with the revelation that this is a Paradox Pokémon, this raises the disturbing question of whether any other Paradox Pokémon might be out there wreaking havoc on innocent trainers and Pokémon that are massively underprepared for such encounters.
The Poké Ball locking mechanism in the Paradise Protection Protocol has so many protections going for it to ensure its user cannot be threatened in any capacity, but it possesses a single irreconcilable Fatal Flaw: the assumption that the base data for the Poké Balls and Pokémon in question cannot be spoofed. If a Poké Ball can have its OT ID edited to match whatever is whitelisted, the protection will fail and whatever unauthorized Pokémon the user does not want to deal with is going to come out whether they wish it or not. So, if you can edit a Poké Ball to have its OT ID match anything you want, that's one or two steps away from editing a Poké Ball to allow it to catch another Trainer's Pokémon. Suddenly, the Snag Machine just became a lot more dangerous, and even with the time machine nonfunctional, Paldea is looking more and more like the ideal Cipher expansion site...
The Toxic Chains that the "Loyal Three" have enhanced them from weak and pathetic Pokémon to Pokémon that are strong enough to qualify as legendary Pokémon, raising questions about what kind of power would an actual legendary (or even worse, a human!) have if they came into contact with a Toxic Chain.
- And then, we have Pecharunt. A Mythical Pokémon that is stated to feed People and Pokémon Mochi that chains those who eat to its will and become controlled. Considering how it seems to be the Momotaro to the Loyal Three, and also has the Toxic Chains that the Loyal Three have in their design, it is suffice to say that this thing is reponsible for what the Loyal Three have done.
As sad as Ogerpon being shunned by the village for, effectively, just defending herself and avenging her friend is, it's easy to understand why the people of Kitakami were so scared of her after her slaying of the Loyal Three — being Bludgeoned to Death with a massive, spiked cudgel certainly wouldn't have been a quick and easy kill...
When you meet Kieran and Carmine, the former is incredibly shy and constantly insulted and yelled at by the latter. One of Carmine's lines even implies that she hits Kieran, or at least considers it "being kind" to not hit him. And she's his sister, so they've lived together Kieran's whole life. While Carmine does get nicer thanks to the player and Ogerpon, Kieran spent all his life getting tormented by her — all the smug and cruel ways she acts up until you meet Ogerpon, he had to deal with on a daily basis. As anyone with a bullying older sibling can attest to, that can be incredibly harmful. And then when he finally makes a proper friend in the player, said friend keeps getting pulled away by his sister and ends up lying to him. No wonder he finally breaks.
- The people closest to Kieran throughout his life are Carmine, his grandpa and his grandma, and during the events of Teal Mask, his trust for Carmine and his grandpa has been broken. Before the eventful night of the Festival of Masks, his grandma said after dressing you up that she feels like she had another grandchild. At that point of time, Kieran likely interprets it as "Yay! I have one more grandchild to cherish!". Afterwards? He likely will misconstrue that line as "Yay! I have a replacement grandchild!"
During the tail end of The Way Home, Arven, like Penny and Nemona, meets the second, more aggressive Raidon twice: Once before entering Zero Lab and another during the final battle against Paradise Protection Protocol. Neither of these meetings informs him one crucial thing only we find out: Said Raidon was responsible for the death of his professor parent, meaning that he unknowingly sees his parent's killer right in front of him. Which brings us to the second horror: Luckily for us, the second Raidon is merely an animal acting on primal instincts and thus other than obeying Paradise Protection Protocol, it's more interested in asserting its dominance over our friendly Raidon. Imagine if the second Raidon were sapient and intelligent enough like our Raidon (who bonds quickly with us, empathises with Penny, and understands human language even if it's just "sandwich") or the Lousy Trio (who're so intelligent they understand the value of treasures and can scam people); given that some real life intelligent animals such as crows can recognize humans faces and hold a grudge, an intelligent, violent Raidon who recognized Arven as looking similar to the human who tried to thwart its attempt to kill our Raidon might instead zero in on him first.
During The Indigo Disk, Geeta states that part of the reason she's allowing Briar to go into Area Zero is because she's concerned about dangerous Pokémon escaping into Paldea. This could simply be a nod to the Paradox Donphan (Great Tusk/Iron Treads) fought as a Titan (as it's likely several other people besides the player character and Arven saw it), but it's still a reminder that the Paradox Pokémon are very much capable of getting out.
The concepts of alternate timelines aren't new to the games, so it's possible there's a timeline where the Professor succeeded in keeping the time machine going or maybe even falling in with some unsavory characters like Rainbow Rocket!Giovanni in order to fund their research.
The base game establishes that Penny/Cassiopeia is an incredibly skilled programmer, capable of hijacking your phone remotely and stealing LP from the League without them noticing until she comes clean herself. The horror part? Her bullies were lucky that she goes by some code of honor, which caused her to challenge them by essentially declaring an open war using Team Star. Had she been any more unscrupulous, she could have used her hacking expertise to absolutely destroy her bullies without them realizing what happened, for example, take control of their phones to send controversial messages, make unsolicited purchases, spread private information etc. Or she could've also hacked into the school database as well to screw over her bullies; The League was completely oblivious of the security breach throughout Starfall Street, so there's no reason to think the Academy would be any better-informed if she were to manipulate grades or attendance history or what else.
- Penny suggests hacking the school's systems to fix the Star Bosses' grades in their post-DLC side story. She quickly tries to pass this off as a joke, and in context it's a bit heartwarming, but it goes to show how lucky everyone else is. If Penny knows how to get into the academy's systems, she very easily could have used that for much worse purposes than helping her friends.
Drayton and Kieran:
- Drayton's response to Kieran losing his Champion title (calling Kieran "ex-champion") is harsh enough as it is, but remember that before Kieran climbed all that way up, Drayton was the champion of BB League (albeit without ever accepting the title). It's entirely possible that Kieran did call Drayton "ex-champion" (among other nasties) after beating him, giving Drayton plenty of reason to nurture a grudge to finally throw that line back at Kieran.
- Kieran's sour attitude seems to particularly rub Drayton the wrong way. Despite the official site having said that Drayton is laid-back, his first meeting with you has him ask you about Kieran in an antagonistic manner (evidenced by his frown and his combative posture). This is bad enough as this means after realizing that Kieran abruptly changed after the trip to Kitakami, he suspects that whoever was with Kieran during said trip either knows about or is responsible for Kieran's change... which likely means he also confronted Carmine about it. Who knows how that went, seeing that Carmine already doesn't like Drayton, and Drayton came down hard on her with prejudice and suspicion.
So Kieran finds out the truth about Ogerpon and spreads the word to the townspeople, who immediately apologize to it and fully accept that they had been wrong about it the whole time. Kieran and Carmine's grandfather, who had wanted to keep Ogerpon's story a secret out of fear that the townspeople would not accept that the version of history they knew was untrue, ends up being proven wrong in his assumption. All well and good...except the fact that Grandpa was wrong means that the whole scenario of clearing Ogerpon's name could have played out much sooner and without all the lies and secret-keeping. So had the beans been spilled sooner, not only would Ogerpon have been accepted by the town much sooner, but Kieran would not have lost his sanity.
We learn that Team Star is formed by students that were victims of bullying who were trying to fight back because the academy had a rampant bullying problem that the faculty was ignoring. Now, realize that the Academy accepts students of many ages; from kids in the single digits to the elderly. The possibility of there being a power imbalance so big means that bullying could have been even worse than we imagined. Just picture a little kid being bullied by a much older, bigger, and stronger adult. No wonder the former teaching staff all quit out of shame.
Snacksworth gives out snacks that attract Legendary Pokémon to people that complete BBQs, and he shows up in the postgame of The Indigo Disk. If he showed up a few days earlier while Kieran was still going through Sanity Slippage, then Kieran would have the potential to track down several legendary Pokémon to use at his disposal. Who knows what kind of havoc he would then cause with them, especially if he forced other students to help him with the group quests to obtain all of the legendaries?
In the scene where Pecharunt throws all of its mochi at the player and their three friends, while Arven and Penny eat the mochi, the player and Kieran dodge it in time. Imagine if the player and Kieran didn't. There would've been no one to undo the madness of Pecharunt. Who knows what it would do from there?
- The Pokémon Center Nurse could potentially still be there, but this is cold comfort since there's likely not much she could do. Even if she actively avoids eating any of the mochi (which is possible, seeing as she's the only one besides the player and Kieran to notice stuff is getting weird), we have no evidence that she can battle, let alone take on a Mythical like Pecharunt, and it's unlikely Pecharunt would have any qualms about having its victims force-feed mochi to her. The most she could potentially do is try calling for help on her phone, and even then, the question remains of just who she would call in this situation and how fast would they be able to get there.
- What's worse is that, like Arven and Penny but unlike Kieran, the player's mouth is open when Pecharunt fires its mochis, meaning that if the player were a split second too late to dodge, they too would've become Pecharunt's minion.
- Kitakami Hall seems to have been left alone during the events of Mochi Mayhem with only the player and Kieran reaching as far as the bottom of the staircase before encountering Kieran's grandparents, as well as the rest of Kitakami outside of Mossui Town. There might've been some resistance left, including that of the Kitakami Ogre Clan were they to find out about the crisis with Pecharunt.
  - The Kitakami Ogre Clan wear masks which would have provided the best defense against the poisoned mochi that Pecharunt could launch at them.
The fact that Pecharunt was sitting out in plain sight the whole time. If something like this had happened slightly earlier, the player character might not have been there to stop it... Alternately, if Pecharunt woke up during their first trip to Kitakami, the Lousy Three probably would've been even harder to deal with if they went back under its control.
Peony being highly-implied to be Penny's father suddenly opens up one particular possible reason as to why she was bullied via being ostracized/ignored in the first place. Peony is Rose's brother, and if Peony is Penny's father, that will make Rose her uncle. Problem is, Rose is a convicted criminal, and thus Penny's bullies likely targeted her because she's a niece of a criminal, disregarding her own opinions about Rose. This could also serve as a reason why she chose to study in Paldea rather than in her home country. Also, this may be why, despite her hacking skills, she initially opted to use Team Star to fight her bullies; if she committed cyber crime and was discovered, she would be legally branded a criminal, and she wouldn't want to give her bullies the validation of calling her a criminal.
Ryme and Grusha's conversation in The Indigo Disk revolves around a sushi restaurant that becomes notorious for making its visitors sick. Among the many seafood present in Japanese cuisine, one, the fugu (or in the Pokémon world, raw Qwilfish meat), is particularly infamous for being lethal if improperly prepared, suggesting that that of all things is on the menu.

Fridge Logic

Fridge entries that require an answer are found in the Headscratchers page.

Fridge / Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Edit Locked

Fridge pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers have been removed and all entries folderized. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.