Gothitelle Redesign Concept

[ty_taurus]

Alright, so one that that irks me about many Pokemon designs, not just Gothitelle's or the rest of her Pokemon family, is that there doesn't seem to be that much thought put into the designs of many Pokemon. Gothitelle's whole thing is that she's based around gothic lolita fashion in the real world. This translates into an austere Pokemon with a peculiar biology that has supposedly inspired a fashion trend in the Pokemon world that mirrors gothic lolita. But what I want to know is: why do Gothitelle and her ilk look this way in the first place?

 

I'll tell you now that there's no answer. They just do. It doesn't matter that it seems completely illogical or counterintuitive to survival in the wild, Gothitelle and her family members are large black blobs covered in bows because someone at GameFreak saw a photo of an anime girl in a black dress and said "Well, I have a quota to meet." Alright, maybe that's a bit harsh, but hear me out.

 

First of all, I'm skeptical to take any amount of information from the Pokedex as an accurate depiction of what these creatures are capable of in the Pokemon world. The device has a notorious track record of making some seriously outrageous claims (No, Ponyta, there is no way you can clear all of Ayer's Rock in a single leap. If that were true, you wouldn't have a weaker Attack stat than Weezing, Ariados, Anorith, Swanna, and Axew, to name a few). That being said, I do think we can look at what the Pokedex does talk about and see why that information is believed to be true of those Pokemon. So what does Gothitelle's family have to offer?

 

They can see the future...

 

Cool, they have the power that most other Psychic Type Pokemon are also capable of and nothing else particularly interesting beyond that. Yes, there's also some astronomical tidbits in there with Gothorita, what with being powered by starlight, but that's not uncommon for other Psychic types either, or even non-Psychic types like Ledian. Supposedly, this lets Gothitelle see their trainer's death in the future, and is meant to explain why they're always so melancholic, but that doesn't explain why any wild Gothitelles would be so gloomy. Beyond that, Gothita's entries describe their bows as feelers meant to enhance their psychic abilities, but that still doesn't answer why they're shaped like that to begin with.

If we compare this to another Pokemon designed around a modern aesthetic style: Scraggy and Scrafty, we get a very different picture. Yes, they're designed to look like they're wearing baggy pants and (in Scrafty's case) a hoodie. That being said, the reason why is actually explained in their Dex entries: They shed their skin and wear it like pants because its rubbery and can be used to absorb blows from rival Scraggies and Scrafties. When under attack, they pull up the skin to use as a barrier. This plays on a number of things: Their reptilian design, as reptiles shed their skin, their Dark/Fighting typing, as that explains their crass dispositions, and the fact that they fight over territories, something common in real world nature. So if that much thought can go into Scraggy and Scrafty, then why is Gothitelle just a Psychic Pokemon with generic psychic powers doing psychic things designed to look like a gothic lolita outfit for no particular reason?

 

Here's where I propose my redesign concept: Gothita, Gothorita, and Gothitelle, the Psychic Pokemon that can't see.

 

Gothita, Gothorita, and Gothitelle do not have eyes and can't see their surroundings. They use their psychic energy to conjure butterfly manifestations that flutter around the surrounding area and telepathically deliver information about all they touch to their host. Once Gothita, Gothorita, and Gothitelle are familiar with their environment, their butterfly manifestations rest on their bodies and look like bows from a distance. Gothita are only strong enough to produce one large psychic butterfly, and thus fixates on whatever that butterfly lands on. Gothorita's few butterfly manifestations are able to locate light from stars and allow Gothorita access to a mental map of the sky. She can then use the stars to direct herself. Gothitelle is able to conjure so many butterfly manifestations that flutter all around her surrounding location, sending her so much information about all that around her, that she's able to move about the environment and predict her opponents movements better that Pokemon with sight.

 

This actually doesn't change much about these three Pokemon and are influenced by the few pieces of personality that each species currently has. I know this is a little intense of a rant, but it was a cool idea, at least I think, and I wanted to share it.

 

 

 

[Feng Lei]

Well, I thought it was a cool idea. And nice touch turning the bows into butterflies drones.

 

Now, explain the Vanilluxe line, and then we can get down to business making some ounce of sense of the Unova mons.

 

And then all the electric mechanical types, namely Magnemite and Kling.

[ty_taurus]

I actually like the idea of an ice elemental that people shaped a frozen treat around. It reminds me of animal crackers or other snacks shaped like animals.

 

It's really just Vanilluxe that's the problem. First of all, there's 0 reason for that straw to be there. It's just so blatantly meant to be ice cream that it just feels like a lazy design, not to mention that there's really no interesting change between Vanillish and Vanilluxe. It's just a second head and a straw.

 

Maybe, when Vanillish evolve into Vanilluxe, the top half (the ice cream part) of their body becomes more translucent--more frozen but still cloudy-looking. They can emit a faint colorful glow which changes the color of their top half (as if changing flavors) to signal other Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe for different reasons. Maybe red (strawberry) means danger, blue (blue raspberry) means there's food, or something like that? Would be a good enough reason to learn Signal Beam via Level instead of tutor.

 

Edit: Also, I don't think all the Unova Pokemon are bad, hence why I used Scraggy and Scrafty as good examples. I do believe Unova suffers from being too big, and thus some designers were struggling to make some Pokemon that thematically and mechanically felt unique, especially for less common types like Ghost and Ice. Personally, I find Sinnoh to be the worst offender Pokedex-wise. That's mostly because I think it's a bad idea to just give an evolution to a Pokemon that's weak. If a Pokemon is weak, and you want to fix that, then change their stats, abilities, typing, or whatever. I'm glad they've abandoned that mentality after Sinnoh, though. There's a reason why we don't see them throwing in new Pokemon just to fix older ones.

[Zander]

Why does Greninja have a tongue sticking out so long? Why does Delphox need a stick to cast fire and how come the stick doesn't get burned?

It's pokemon that's how. It's a cool concept to revise Pokedex and pokemon designs so they make sense. But you'll have many many pokemon to consider.