#baezil writes

Sort of. First, a few pfefferi facts: 

They have tentacles above their eyes and two small, paddle-y fins at the end of their mantle. They can make their eyes glow. They have ammonium ions in their blood that helps keep them buoyant. As they mature they lose their glassy translucence and become a pinkish red. 

What really reminded me of igglybuff seeing the photos of H. pfefferi was it’s little tangle of tentacles above its eyes. Then there were the forward-facing eyes on the glassy juvenile. Those tentacles, the big round eyes, the little foot-like fins (see last photo below), its roundular buoyancy-- how could I not think of this cutie? 

And, yeah, this is totally a headcanon, but when I try to think of realistic interpretations and taxonomies for the igglybuff line, I’ve always had a hard time. They’re so simple, almost featureless. Even the features they do have are weird-- a little spiral (hair? colouring?), the lumpy head extrusions, bonelessly flopping feet and fingerless arms. Sure, it’s a cartoon, but it exists in the same world as far more anatomically detailed, “textured” ‘mon like, say, inkay or . And unlike other baby pokemon, igglybuff doesn’t really become more complex as it evolves-- wigglytuff is very basic in terms of design and anatomy elements. 

But if we imagine that, like tangela and jinx, igglybuff and its evolved forms are cephalopods adapted for a terrestrial environment, the external simplicity make sense. The smooth, balloon-like mantle of H. pfefferi accounts for the skin; the line’s buoyant movements fit well with an aquatic animal’s movements; igglybuff’s squiggle could be a tentacle or maybe a vestigial siphon; the lumpen appendages on the head are modified or tightly curled tentacles; the featureless limbs are fins or, in the case of jigglypuff and wigglytuff’s ears, modified tentacles. Obviously it’s not perfect, but I like it. 

Let’s start with their dog-like design. 

-- Fairy dogs are most often large hounds. The cu sith (pron. coo shee) of the the Scottish Highlands, one of the most frequently encountered examples of fairy dogs, is usually “dark green in colour” with “a long tail coiled up on its back, or plaited in a flat plait” (Briggs 83). Many other fairy hounds are spectral and terrifying—  the headless,  ravening yeth hounds or the haunting harbingers of doom like the trash or the padfoot. But there are vague mentions in folk lore of unnamed fairy dogs that sound more like our little pokepups. After addressing the more well known fairy dogs, many texts remark something to the effect of, “other fairy dogs are generally white with red ears” (Briggs 82). White with red ears is a fairy colouring found across species, including small, white/red eared canine messengers that announce the arrival of their fae masters. (Shoutout to @ponies-and-pokemon​ for mentioning the white/red ears fact yesterday. This post has been written since August, but it was nice to know that there are people out there who’ll know if a fairy animal shows up.)

This is our best bet, aesthetically, for connecting our fairy puppies to fairy lore. And, sure, swirlix and slurpuff are white with pink ears, so maybe it’s a stretch; but I like to think that just as these fairy puppies are smaller and gentler than the rough and fearsome hounds of fairy lore, their colouring is correspondingly softer and less aggressive.

- Food is always important in fairy stories. Eating fairy food is risky, and when swirlix uses its sticky, thread-like excretions to entrap enemies, it’s possibly a reference to the recurring trope of mortals eating fae food and becoming trapped in their realm.

- Slurpuff’s cake-like appearance calls to mind a fairy cake that shows up in British/Irish stories. In the most common version, a farmer on his way to the fields hears disembodied weeping and stumbles upon a broken ped, or child’s shovel, which he fixes before going on to work. Returning home at the end of the day he passes by the spot once more and discovers “a fine new-baked cake” (Briggs 43) where the shovel once was. Against a friend’s warning the farmer eats the cake, pronounces it pretty good, and continues on his way without incident. The story is an exception to the rule that fairy food = disaster.

 If swirlix’s entangling fairy floss threads represent the danger of fairy food, then maybe slurpuff is about cooperation and co-existence. It’s also interesting that just as the fairy cake was given as part of a transaction, slurpuff is only obtainable through a trade-- there are few things fairies like more than a good and fair trade.

- I like that this line is a reversal of the usual evolutionary development where something cute/harmless becomes something fierce or mighty. Just as swirlix and slurpuff represent a gentler kind of fairy canine, this evolutionary line may reference less dangerous fairy lore as it progresses— not unlike the way that more fearsome, utilitarian dog breeds were selectively bred into smaller, gentler lap dogs, or even the way fairy tales and beliefs become tamer and less horrifying over time. 

- The way swirlix and slurpuff are inspired by light, insubstantial foods may also reference the way that food offerings left for fairies at the end of the day were thought to be drained of nutrients in the morning. These offerings were “said to have no real substance left in it… fairies extract the spiritual essence from food offered to them, leaving behind the grosser elements” (Wentz 44). That is, the food is nutritionally null and insubstantial, not unlike refined sugary foods like meringue and cotton candy.

- There may be something that connects the food and canine elements. Slurpuff’s meringue-like design elements calls to mind the meringues made in the Loire region of France, which are sometimes called pets (French colloquialism for fart, for some reason?). The Loire region is the inspiration Kalos Rt. 7, and the Loire’s Chateau d’Azay le Rideau is the inspiration and real-world twin of Kalos’ Battle Chateau. 

Rt. 7 is also the only area where you can find wild swirlix. The coincidence of pet meringues and swirlix the wee meringue puppy appearing in the same place just can’t be ignored, and I have to believe the designers were aware of les pets when they designed swirlix/slurpuff. (And as long as we’re making purely speculative leaps, I enjoy the coincidence of the multi-lingual pun on the word pet and the fairy cake given in exchange for a repaired ped.)

References

Briggs, Catherine Mary. An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblings, Bronwies, Bogies, and other Supernature Creatures. Pantheon, 1976.

Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries. Oxford UP, 1911. 

Sherman, Josepha. Storytelling: an Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. Taylor and Francis, 2008

Spritzee and aromatisse’s designs are pretty straightforward, and most people know how they reference images of plague doctors. In pre-modern medicine one significant theory of disease transmission was that illness spread through miasma— that is, bad air. Today we know that smells and germs are carried by the air, separate from the oxygen we breathe, but miasmic theory held that heavy humidity and bad smells indicated that air had been corrupted to its very essence. This theory informed practices of disease prevention; possibly as early as the 1300s, European doctors tending to plague victims would wear a beak-like mask (along with a full body suit, gloves, and boots). The “nose” of this mask was lined with aromatic herbs; by infusing the air with healthful essences, these herbs were meant to purify the air of its miasmatic corruption.

Spritzee and aromatisse, then, reference not only fancy perfumes but also much darker imagery of those risking their lives to treat very sick, very contagious patients. Fairy types are often associated with good health and purification, and this would be a sufficient, if straightforward, reason for spritzee’s fairy typing. But Aromatisse’s ballroom dancer design elements, especially, adds some complexity and darkness that I haven’t seen anyone discuss in depth. In early modern Europe, plague doctor masks became culturally iconic in both Italian theater and  Venitian Carnival/masquerade. Aromatisse’s exaggerated eyelashes and plague doctor nose are references to carnival masquerades— i.e., costumed dances. This connection really connects the plague doctor mask to the typing because courtly dances are straight out of fairy lore. 

European fairies are constantly associated with dancing. Nineteenth century folklorist Wirt Sikes writes that, like their European counterparts, Welsh fairies “are most often dancing together when seen. They seek to entice mortals to dance with them, and when anyone is drawn to do so, it is more than probable he will no return to his friends for a long time” (70). Fairies were thought to be from a place of boundless wealth and prosperity and longevity, so it makes sense that they have an enduring passion for dance, a favourite pastime of the beautiful and wealthy; but part of fairy strangeness is the way their love of leisure and mischief can become dangerous to mortals. 

So many fairy folk tales are focused on either avoiding fairies or, failing that, how to be polite enough to escape harm. Mortals unlucky enough to fall in with a dancing troupe of fairies were particularly unlucky; according to Sikes, “In the great majority of these stories [of escape from fairy dances] the hero dies immediately after his release from the thralldom of the fairies—in some cases with a suddenness and a completeness of obliteration as appalling as dramatic” (72). He offers one example of a man who is drawn into a fairy dance and kept there, continually dancing, for years. At long last he is noticed by a passerby who interrupts the dance. As soon as the dance stops the man “instantly crumbled away” (Sikes 72). 

But not all dancing deaths were so sudden— there are folktales of people who are stolen away nightly to dance with the fair folk and who grow so exhausted that they waste away over time. These nightly abductions were sometimes associated with tuberculosis, a disease that (in the 19th century, at least) slowly and progressively weakens the afflicted. One author even says that it was sometimes thought to be a kind of “fairy vampirism” (Silver 169). (A really great example of this trope in contemporary fiction is the novel and the adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.)

Spritzee and aromatisse, then, evoke contradictory imagery. One the one hand, you have the reference to plague doctors— creepy, maybe, but ultimately helpful, courageous, benevolent, a purifying force. But that same imagery has a flip-side, a reference to fairy balls that are dangerous, alien, and associated with illness. The fact that both spritzee and aromatisse reference plague masks (conventionally creepy and unsettling) while also being feminine and pretty (pink, long lashes, graceful movements)  is a fitting contradiction. Like the fae folk, they make the unsettling and dangerous seem attractive. They walk that line separating blessing and curse, sickness and health, horror and beauty. They are, like all fairies, in-between.

References: 

Sikes, Wirt.  British goblins : Welsh folk-lore, fairy mythology, legends and traditions. London: Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1880. 

First off, I don’t believe that there is sucha thing as overthinking a piece of media, and I’ve blogged about the first half of the Indigo League anime at length, so I may be biased. That said, I hate that the post so definitively dismisses this interpretation as valid and ignores the fact that the treatment of pokemon is an open question. (I find it... amusing that it also suggests that the interpretation that all pokemon live to beat the crap out of each other isn’t itself kind of edgy and ott.) The OS anime itself constantly invites us to question and thoughtfully consider the failures and possibilities of how humans live with pokemon. That’s Ash’s whole deal-- he’s the one willing to ask questions, try things that no one else will for fear of being stupid. 

More specifically, the post is bad at supporting its own claims. Let’s get into some things it... selectively overlooks.

1) Its evidence is based on uncritically accepting what human characters say. Sure, Pokeverse culture is really big on the idea that Pokemon want to be caught; sure the pokedex says that spearow is “jealous” of trained pokemon. But, like, we can all agree that in our world humans construct narratives, stories about the world, that shape what they see as real and justify and enable exploitative behaviour, right? (E.g.-- people saying cows/chickens are dumb as a way to suggest that they deserve/don’t mind horrifying treatment in factory farms.) Of course a field guide given to new trainer is going to interpret pokemon behaviour in a way that encourages him to catch and train rather than fight for pokemon rights. Like, they wouldn’t have given him the radical environmentalist ‘dex!  

And, as the anime makes clear, there is a HUGE merchandising/sports industry that relies on the belief that catching and battling is unproblematic.

2) The post is selective in its evidence. There anime, especially, shows us evidence that there are at the very least exceptions to the idea that every pokemon wants to be a trained pokemon. First, that same spearow that the pokedex claims is “jealous” only attacks Ash because Ash hit it with a fucking rock. He literally, physically attacked it, and it retaliates in self defense, mobbing him and Pikachu not unlike crows who recognize and untrustworthy intruder. Mobbing is an aggressive, self-defensive move that indicates a lack of trust, a fear of Ash because of his earlier violence. The ‘Dex’s explanation is, even in world, fishy as hell and ultimately doesn’t make sense with what actually happens. (Why mob a trainer you’re trying to impress?)

Second, the oddish in “Bulbasaur and the Secret Village” shows us that there are ‘mon who simply do not want to be caught, and shows us that trainers (in this case, Misty) rarely notice or care. After all, if you believe every pokemon is willing and available, consent to capture isn’t something you even consider.

3) Butterfree (as well as many of Ash’s other pokemon across the years) shows us that sometimes pokemon have desires that conflict with and outweigh their supposed desire to be a “bloodknight”/gladiator-- i.e., normal species behaviours. The hate Ash so often gets for releasing his pokemon when they want to leave shows how few trainers probably understand or pay attention to these desires. (There is a butterfree release festival, but it’s a voluntary and species-specific event-- trainers can and do choose to keep their butterfree in captivity.)

4) Goodra in XY shows us how complex pokemons’ social lives are. Goodra eventually returns to the swamp because it wants to protect its friends, to keep them safe, and again, Ash lets it stay there. After all, Ash only encounters because it was dramatically separated from its home in the first place. 

Ash is, I think, the exception in his haphazard, contingent style of training. I say the exception because Ash’s thing is that he’s unconventional and understands his team in a way that is surprisingly deep and unique. Ash’s willingness to let his pokemon live their lives on their own terms is one of the clearest ways he shows his extraordinary abilities to care about and listen to his ‘mon. The point of all of this is that many trainers may not have listened to their pokemon’s desires or considered releasing a team member they’d spent so long training.