Across 1025 Pokémon Game Freak released several such games into the world, cursed with some nonsense poisoned by the Internet, which made them instant memes. You can’t have Lopunny or Gardevoir on your team without attracting suspicious glances. Don’t ask Vaporeon fans how they are doing now. Now an unexpected addition has joined these infamous ranks: Typhlosion. You know, the fire weasel-looking starter Pokémon Gold AND Silver. What could this guy be ashamed of? Well, buckle up, people. Because it’s a doozy.
It all started as part of the so-called Freak game leak which took place over the weekend, which included unused Pokémon sprites from recent years, details about upcoming games such as Pokémon Legends: A.Sand information about planned spin-offs and anime films. However, these are not the most infamous things in the entire saga. Apparently the files also contain fictional documents that have been bothering fans. If true, none of them have been officially made public, so they should not be considered “canonical”. But like most real-world mythology and folklore, these stories contain elements that are a bit messed up if taken literally rather than as legend. So keep this context in mind as I tell you that there is supposedly a story about Typhlosion impregnating a human woman.
These mythological stories have been translated and spread on the Internet and include concepts such as “Original sin“In Pokémon the universe and the relationship between humans and Pokémon. These include stories about a person who had a relationship with Octillery, another whom Vigoroth seemingly impregnated after killing the baby Slakoths, and a story about Typhosion, who disguises himself as a human male, kidnaps a girl, erases her memories of the past, and has a child with her. The Typhlosion story was, well, a breakthrough in these stories and sent Pokémon fans into an up-and-down spiral. There are now hundreds of memes and graphics depicting this situation.
The problem is that it’s currently unclear whether these stories actually resided somewhere on Game Freak’s strenuous drive, or if someone is simply taking advantage of all the chaos to spread misinformation. Whether they are justified or not, they have undoubtedly become embedded in the way people will talk about Typhlosion and the other Pokémon featured in these stories. Assuming they are true, however, there appears to be a disconnect between the intentions behind such stories and the community’s response to them. Some Pokémon fans read them as very literal and claim that the all-ages Game Freak series has hidden hostility beneath the surface.
If you open a book on Greek or Norse mythology, you will find plenty of similar stories in these pantheons, such as how Loki was impregnated by a horse. Despite this undeniable similarity to real-world myths, that doesn’t stop some people from latching on to these types of stories as if they were somehow problematic or intended to be pornographic. The rejection of this way of thinking was sturdy and quick.
Ultimately, whether they are true or not is irrelevant to some people at this point because the joke has become so common that Pokémon fans will never forget this. Typhlosion was somehow the worst of this, and if you’re a long-time fan of the Gen II starter, I’m sorry for the crap you’ll be receiving for the rest of your life. I had the Hisuian version in my copy Pokémon Legends: Arceus party, so now I know I’ll never be able to post a screenshot of this band again.
