Clockwork Knight

so to start: the original version of bulbapedia's dunsparce article was created on March 6th 2005. with a then much smaller userbase, it took until March 29th for a "Name Origin" subsection to be created and populated, a screenshot of which should be below:

this was the state the article persisted for over 2 years. mostly. some changes were made to move/remove the line about flying snakes, but the focus of this post is about the name origin so i'm keeping our focus on that. anyway, that was how the article looked until October 30th 2007, where the article was then amended as follows:

to be fair, I can't fault them for providing a thorough entry. those are indeed many definitions of the word dunce. but note the language used: could be. again , to be fair to the user, it's difficult to suss out the components of a complex pun without knowing the author's intentions, but "could be" is a lot less certain and authoritative than "may be" or "can" are. the extra definition of sparse as "meager" also suggests to me a level of personal umbrage with dunsparce, but that's just my onion. although, a later editor would also agree that the new definitions were a bit much, and after another two years, the article was later pared down and edited to fit the bulbapedia style on November 29th 2009. they still maintained "dunce", however:

because history loves patterns, not much would happen within the dunsparce article for yet another two years where two edits were fired off in relatively hyperspeed succession. the first: a claim that "spear" may be a potential name origin, on account of its drilling tail. the second, not even twenty minutes later: a reversion of the prior edit, along with...the additional removal of "dunce"!

oh yes, much rejoicement all around! finally, the goofy fat snake has been removed from the burden of-

damnit.

Five years. Five whole years. that's how long it took for someone, anyone, to notice that "dunce" was no longer within the article. and then, with what i can only assume was the same rationale that added it to the article some nine years prior, it was readded once more.

for the sake of conciseness, i've condensed the next few major events into this image block:

and this has how the article has remained, until August 30th 2023, where in the wee hours of the morning i created a personal bulbapedia account to remove the "dunce", and provided what I feel is a reasonable rationale for doing so. i do also plan to spruce up the dudunsparce page at some point, but i want to avoid looking like a kooky fatsnake evangelist and i also want to do some more research on spanish folklore to make sure i have a solid basis for adding anything before i get started.

now you may be wondering why i care so much about a name origin. well firstly, i like dunsparce—it's one of my favorites of gen 2, so im a bit biased. secondly, i'm pretty sure i have an undiagnosed something or other so this is how my brain is telling me to spend my time this week: dunsparce and dudunsparce. thirdly, after actually looking through the article's edit history, i feel like the users of bulbapedia, and the wider pokemon fandom, deserve to have higher standards for the curation of information. would it be fair to scolipede, for example, if someone were to add "lip" as a potential name origin because it just happens to be in scolipede's name? what about cofagrigus? perhaps drednaw takes inspiration from the color "red"? should moe syzlak of the simpsons be considered the namesake of cosmoem???

all i'm saying is: dunsparce has been an article for over ~18 years now. ~8 of those years (2+5+1) were spent dunceless while ~10 (4+3+3) were spent dunced. it's not like these gaps were from a lack of research either, but rather from a lack of care about sourcing information. i mean, five whole years before someone even stopped to think "hey where did the dunce go".

and you know what, maybe i'm the one in the wrong here. maybe there's a yet-undiscovered translator interview out there which can explain what the naming process was for dunsparce, and i'll be proven wrong. i'd be fine with that. but until such a source is found, i think it's safer to err on the side of caution with names.

majestic, is it not? personally i was not the biggest fan when it was revealed, but it has grown on me since then.

now, there is at current a very strong, loud refrain in the pokemon fandom that dudunsparce is a joke, and was always meant to be a joke. they say "people have wanted an epic dragon evolution for twenty years, and gamefreak has trolled them"; "dudunsparce is supposed to be a bad/lame/dumb design because it's a joke".

however! i disagree. i have been a lifelong fan of dunsparce, ever since i was a young malformed guttersnipe who thought it was a mythical pokemon, and i can safely say i've never wanted it to become a dragon. however, i also have never viewed it as a joke pokemon. so to hear people write off the design of dudunsparce as simply "a joke" has frustrated me to no end. so to you, reader, i would like to provide an explanation for why dudunsparce is what it is—a mess.

so, let's start at the beginning of the line with dunsparce.

many people will look at dunsparce's name and their mind immediately goes to dunce, sparce. and, fair enough, as it does look a bit dopey doesn't it? Other languages also give it names meaning "dumb" or "oafish" like the German Dummisel and the French Isolourdo respectively. now, I cant speak on how strong brand consistency was back in Gen 2, so maybe they were just aping off the same perception most English speakers had of the name. or it is possible that TPCi had always intended this interpretation. who is to say.

but there is a more obvious, widely overlooked aspect of its name: Dun. as in a subadult version of an insect, traditionally used when describing mayflies.

IN FACT this is such an underacknowledged aspect of its name that even on Bulbapedia, one of the most important secondary sources of information on pokemon next to serebii, i was hard pressed to find any mention of it at any point earlier than 2022, in an article revision that SIMILARLY went unnoted and uncommented on.

future editions of this article maintain both definitions of the word "dun".

but with this aspect of its name in mind, you'll notice that the rather un-tsuchinoko-like aspects of its design become more coherent, like its near-useless bug wings and stripey back. because its not just a snake with a fat tummy, but a fat bumblebee as well! wow!!! so cool!!!!!

now that this preamble is out of the way, we can finally move onto the mon of the hour: dudunsparce

pokedex entries for dudunsparce's 3-segment form mention that "the number of segments a Dudunsparce’s body has is determined by the Pokémon’s genes." at first glance it feels like a bit of a lore cop out for a formchange with no effect on gameplay. but remember how dunsparce has some partial insect inspiration? with this in mind, dudunsparce reveals itself to be, first and foremost, a reference to the Drosophila fruit fly's bithorax mutation:

as you can see, sometimes the genes for the termination of the thorax are copied accidentally, resulting in a copied thorax in the afflicted insect! and with "dun" meaning a subadult insect, we can reconceptualize dudunsparce from a simple joke, to a pokemon species whose inherent genetic mutations have kept it from reaching its true adult form! it even has the stripey butt that a fruit fly has!! so cool!!! a bit sad though, don't you think?

but there are still yet unexplored depths to the design of dudunsparce. for example: why does dudunsparce have a two-layered drill tail? why is there a random spiral on its first segment? well, allow me to introduce you to yet another muckerfuther: the cuélebre.

now i know what you may be thinking: this looks nothing like dudunsparce. and certainly, the resemblance is minimal. but allow me to share with you some mythological information about the cuélebre:

The cuélebre is a multi-winged serpent from Cantabrian and Asturian folklore, both of which are regions of modern-day spain.

The cuélebre's impervious scales grow thicker with age

The cuelebre's only weak spot is its throat

The cuelebre lives in deep caves

The cuelebre retreats to Mar Cuajada in old age, a place with diamonds covering the bottom

sound familiar? it should, because you will notice that dudunsparce mirrors all of these traits almost to a T:

Paldea is based on Spain, and Dudunsparce is a fat snake with multiple wings; or, a winged serpent.

Dudunsparce has much bulkier defensive stats than its preevolution Dunsparce (125/80/75 compared to 100/70/65), and has an extra hard "cap" layer on its tail

There is a seemingly random spiral pattern on the underside of Dudunsparce's first segment, or on its throat, regardless of form

Dudunsparce is mentioned by the pokedex to make sprawling nests in the bedrock, and is only find in the wild in Area Zero

The lowest point of Area Zero is covered in large, diamantine crystals

and for the people who still want dudunsparce to be a "joke": the cuélebre isn't even a very impressive dragon in itself: it hoards treasure and fairy women, and if you encounter it on the night of Midsummer, then you can kill it by tricking it into eating a bread or cake that's full of pins or hot irons. the worst thing it does in folklore that i can find is that it floods a town once because they weren't able to give it its daily cow head. the cuélebre is a nuisance first, and a (sort of) dragon second.

now, i don't want to be raining on people's fun, so i'll take a moment to take my lumps: i wasn't able to find very much information on the cuélebre, so there's a strong chance i am misrepresenting the creature here. aso, people are allowed to view dudunsparce as just a joke pokemon, and to like it as sich, and that's fine! i'm not here to tell you how to engage with your hobbies!

but, when i see that being the only reason that people give for liking the design? when i see that being given as the only reason given for why it looks the way it does? when i see pokemon videos on youtube that quickly bring up and then dismiss dudunsparce as a joke as if that was the only reason behind its design at all, without any kind of additional explanation or exploration of the design? it gets a bit frustrating, and tiresome. i mean hell, i maybe spent about three hours total in researching for this post, and i can confidently say that's far more time than all poketubers have spent on it combined.

the short of it os, that there is always more to be uncovered with fictional material. even with something so seemingly simple as a fat, goofy snake.