Across the 1025 Pokémon Game Freak has put out into the world, there are a handful that are cursed with some internet-poisoned nonsense that makes them an instant meme. You can’t have a Lopunny or a Gardevoir in your team without drawing suspicious glances. Don’t ask Vaporeon fans how they’re doing these days. Now, an unlikely addition has joined these infamous ranks: Typhlosion. You know, the fire weasel-ish starter from Pokémon Gold and Silver. What could this guy possibly have to be ashamed of? Well, strap in, folks. Because it’s a doozy.
It all began as part of the Game Freak leak that occurred over the weekend, which included unused sprites of Pokémon from throughout the years, details about upcoming games like Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and information about planned anime spin-offs and movies. However, those aren’t the most infamous things to come out of the entire saga. Allegedly, the files also include lore documents that have had fans reeling. If these are real, none of these stories have been released to the public officially, so they shouldn’t be considered “canon.” But, like much real-world mythology and folklore, these stories have elements that are a little fucked up if taken literally, rather than as the stuff of legend. So keep that context in mind when I tell you that there’s allegedly a story about a Typhlosion impregnating a human woman.
These mythological stories have been translated and are spreading around the internet, and cover concepts like “Original sin” in the Pokémon universe, and the relationships between humans and Pokémon. They include stories about a person who had relations with an Octillery, another who a Vigoroth seemingly impregnated after killing baby Slakoths, and a story about a Typhlosion who disguises itself as a human man, kidnaps a girl, erases her memories of her past, and has a child with her. The Typhlosion story has been the uh, breakout, of these stories, and has sent fans of the Pokémon spiraling. Now, there are hundreds of memes and art about the situation.
The problem is, it’s unclear at this time if these stories were actually on a Game Freak hard drive somewhere, or if someone’s just taking advantage of all the chaos to spread misinformation. Whether or not they’re legitimate, they have undoubtedly embedded themselves in how people will talk about Typhlosion and other Pokémon included in these tales. But assuming they are real, there seems to be a disconnect between the intention behind stories like this and how the community is reacting to them. Some Pokémon fans are reading them as very literal and are making claims about Game Freak’s all-ages franchise having a hidden malevolence under the surface.
If you open up a book on Greek or Norse mythology, you’ll find plenty of stories like this withinthose pantheons, such as when Loki got impregnated by a horse. Despite that undeniable similarity to real-world myths, it hasn’t stopped some folks from pearl-clutching about these types of stories as if they’re somehow problematic or intended to be pornographic in nature. The pushback against that mindset has been strong and swift.
Ultimately, whether they’re real or not is immaterial to some people at this point, as the joke has become so prevalent that Pokémon fans will never be able to forget it. Typhlosion somehow got the worst of it, and if you’re a long-time fan of the Gen II starter, I’m sorry for the nonsense you will get for the rest of your life. I had the Hisuian variant in my Pokémon Legends: Arceus party so now I know I can never post a screenshot of that team again.
