Lately I've been playing a lot of Pokemon. I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about various pokemon, and the implications of their design, location, abilities, and pokedex data. Just a warning, this is going to be long and wordy,so scroll to the bottom if you want the tl;dr version.

I was just playing my Pokemon Y version again, having started a new game, and I ran into a wild Cubone in the fossil cave. I catch it, and the pokedex data reads:

"It always wears the skull of its dead mother, so no one has any idea what its hidden face looks like."

Now, anyone who's played Pokemon knows about Cubone and it's dark history. But reading this pokedex data got me thinking: Why is it that it always has the skull of it's dead mother? The only way I could see Cubone having its mother's skull always is if it's part of the Cubone/Marowak lifecycle that the mother dies during childbirth, after which the cubone after it hatches either cannibalizes or scavenges from it's mother's corpse for the skull. There are species of animal out there where the mother dies in childbirth, so this isn't so farfetch'd (see what I did there?) But in Pokemon, the mother never lays any more than one egg at a time, so with a one for one trade off, which would mean such a biological trait would be an inherent flaw, once you take into account deaths due to disease, violence, and other means, that would ultimately lead to the extinction of the species. This also wouldn't explain how if you breed a marowak in the day care, you can have several dozen Cubone eggs, each with it's own skull, and your marowak will be just fine.

Now some people argue that the pokedex data is anecdotal, that it refers to a very specific cubone. Specifically, the Cubone in Red and Blue where Team Rocket had killed it's mother. While a possibility, it still doesn't explain the skull of every other Cubone out there. Now if we take it as given that the Pokedex data is anecdotal, how do we explain these other skulls? Well in our world there are cultures and societies out there that hold a belief that in taking in remnants of a deceased relatives remains, you take their power, be it spiritual, physical, or societal, for yourself. There are also cultures that believe the spirits of their ancestors are watching over them, and some believe that wielding or carrying an item belonging to that ancestor strengthens their connection to you. Given that, its not that much of a stretch to think that Cubone and Marowak have a similar social structure. In this case, donning the bones of deceased ancestors, be it great grandmother, grandmother, or as recent as the mother itself. They may feel that, aside from the physical protection such a helmet and weapon provides, that wearing it will call upon the spirit of the deceased to protect them. It also calls back to what I had said about taking on the strength of your ancestors, specifically in this case in that the strength of the ancestor directly becomes the strength of the Cubone via the thickness of the skull helmet and the sturdiness of the bone club. I don't know, just was something interesting to think about.

Another interesting factoid to think about. Look at the Honedge, Doubledge Aegislash evolutionary line. They are, for all intents and purposes, possessed swords. Consider that there was a great war in Kalos's history, and then consider where you find Honedges. You find them in an overgrown field, outside the Parfum Palace. Examinations of the palace suggest that it's ancient, which to me suggests that it may have once belonged to Kalos's King. So, an open field, out front of the king's castle, littered with possessed swords. Does anyone else think that Honedge might be the spirit of a dead soldier who had fought in the war? The question is begged as to whether they are the soldiers of Kalos or an invading nation, but there is really no proof one way or the other.

Now another interesting factoid about the Aegislash evolutionary line is their color pallet. If you look at Honedge, it has a green eye and a blue sash. Doubledge has a pink eye with a pink sash, and after using a dusk stone Aegislash has a purple eye with a white pupil, black sclera, and a deep purple sash. Now I found the eye on Aegislash interesting and I thought to myself "That almost looks like a photo negative" so I took a picture of Aegislash into photoshop and reverse the color pallet and guess what? Aegislash IS a photo negative. WHen it's pallet is reversed it has the usual white sclera and black pupil, with a GREEN iris like Honedge.Most of it's color pallet also shifts to blue , like Honedge's sash, as well as silver, which makes it look downright like a paladin in the bright, heroic colors a photo negative Aegislash has.

Now Honedge never was considered a "good" pokemon by any stretch of the term. In both X and Y it's pokedex data refers to it's habit of latching onto people and drinking their life energy, in Y even saying it "Drains that person's life energy completely" so Honedge is one evil little bastard, it kills people. Now Doubledge is interesting, in that it's stated that Honedge splits into two when it evolves. then there's Aegislash, which is said to attend to Kings, and that a person picked by Aegislash is destined to be king. There's a lot of ways to interpret this. Aegislash attending to Kings sounds like a GOOD thing. It isn't just blindly syphoning off people's life energy anymore. So if we consider that aegislash is a good pokemon, I could see Doubledge as the Honedge gaining cognisance. I've seen enough ghost shows to know that there are generally two different kind of hauntings: echoes, and intelligent spirits. echoes are just impulses, barely reacting, if at all, to their surrounding environment. Honedge would be an echo, feeding without thought or consideration. But then it evolves once it's gained enough strength, and it splits in two. This could be the spirit trying to develop that intelligence, to regain a sense of the person it once was. One sword is the violent, mindless life sucking machine that it used to be, whereas the other sword is the part that's remembering who it was in life, developing intelligence, being able to react to it's environment. It no longer steals life at this stage, but it isn't quite there yet, so it still attacks wantonly in battle, hence still having no guard. Once you use the Dusk Stone on it to help it evolve to Aegislash, it's back down to one sword. It's managed to do away with the part of itself that was mindless and regain it's sentience and intelligence. It's capable of choosing if it wants to attack or defend, hence stance change as it's ability. If it was a heroic knight in times of old it would also explain it's fantastic overall stat spread. It would also explain how it "chooses a king", in that as a knight to a king long ago, it would know what makes a king and be able to pick those traits out from someone else. Or it could just be "divine right" bullcrap and Aegislash actually doesn't possess that ability, it was just an excuse for kings to stay in power. So it makes Aegislash out to be the good guy. but then why this photo negative color pallet?

another alternative to consider. Dusk stone is required to make Doubledge evolve to Aegislash. Dusk is the time of day in which the sun sets. approaching darkness. dark pokemon in Japan are known as the "Evil" type, not the dark type. So it seems that dark pokemon are inherently evil in the pokemon world. Anti Heroes at the very least. Also consider that pretty much all ghost type pokemon are evil in the pokemon world (all their pokedex data talks about kidnappings, vengeance, reaping of souls and, at it's most mild, malicious pranks)and add a dusk stone on top of it, we just have a double helping of evil. So this alternate theory suggests that in using the dusk stone on the Doubledge, we do help it regain it's sanity so to speak, but in doing so we corrupt the spirit and turn it evil. It becomes an almost complete pallet swap of it'self, like a complete reversal. the once noble knight who died in service to his king, now an evil puppeteer. After all, Aegislash's pokedex also states that in attendance to kings, it "used its spectral power to manipulate people and pokemon". That sounds pretty evil to me, in fact it sounds like either Aegislash was a pokemon used by dictators to keep control over the populace, or may have even been controlling the king itself. Instead of being in service to the throne, this corrupted knight's spirit takes the throne by proxy. Pretty messed up.

And finally, consider this: the pokemon Cofagrigus, who is one of those again evil ghost types we were talking about, is a possessed coffin who's pokedex data states that "It's been said that they swallow those who get too close and turn them into mummies. It likes to eat gold nuggets." It's a mummy pokemon, so it turns things into other mummies. Creepy. But what's creepier, is that it actually DOES this in a fight. Look at it's ability, Mummy. It has Mummy, because it IS a Mummy. Mummy says that "If you are touched by an opponent, you make their ability Mummy." so you're saying if your opponent's pokemon gets to close, you Mummify them? Cofagrigus MUMMIFIES opposing pokemon. That's messed up.

TL;DR Cubone's bone helmet doesn't make sense, Aegislash is the spirit of a Kalos knight we turned evil with a dusk stone, and Cofagrigus mummifies your opponent's pokemon. the Pokemon world is all kinds of messed up.