Talk:Rhi

Are we sure Rhi is male? In the text for Ultra Beast Protection Efforts, it appears Professor Willow refers to them with they/them ("Rhi says [Team GO Rocket] might be taking an interest in our otherworldly visitors, huh? I'm inclined to think they're right.") which implies they might be nonbinary, and as far as I know, they've never gotten their gender confirmed in English. TheEnforcerEX (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)User:TheEnforcerEX

I've been wondering the same thing as well, tbh. When i first saw an edit claiming Rhi is male i thought "huh?" but didn't think much of it. Honestly now that we have confirmation that Rhi uses they/them, I think i'm confident enough to remove that claim. Thank you for the notice. Anzasquiddles (talk) 08:02, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

They use male pronouns in the German game, so he is in some version of the game confirmed male. --Altruis _でんき 20:26, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting considering the German ver uses non-gendered terms for Blanche; wonder why it isn't the case for Rhi. Anyway, will add to the page. Anzasquiddles (talk) 20:36, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

That makes me wonder, how do the other languages of the game refer to Rhi? (GO is available in English, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Korean, Simpl. Chinese, Turkish, Braz. Portuguese, Thai, Russian, Indonesian). Anzasquiddles (talk) 20:43, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Rhi's Name Origins

Hello there! I'm new to the technical side of Bulbapedia, so I'm not too sure how to tackle something like this. But I'll try to be quick!

Anyways, I wholeheartedly believe that the origins of Rhi's name are from the Thalassodendron pachyrhizum, a species of seagrass in the Cymodoceaceae family. All members of the Ultra Recon Squad are named after different types of seagrass or algae. (The ones you fight are named after algae, and the ones you do not are named after seagrass.)

Using this knowledge on the naming conventions of the URS, Rhi fits by being named after the T. pachyrhizum. -rhizo is commonly used in plants in general, though does not exactly tie into the origins of Rhi's own name. (Another example would be Soliera's name, which is from the Solieriaceae family of red algae. Solieria is also the name of a genus of fly, but because of the theme of the URS, we are aware that her name does not come from the fly, and rather, the algae.) macabre (talk) 21:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, i didn't know about the URS theme naming. I thought the Thalassodendron pachyrhizum thing was a bit of a stretch, but with this background of the URS being named after algae/seagrass it does makes sense to me now. Anzasquiddles (talk) 03:23, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

This isn't a core series game, so the naming scheme doesn't always extend there. None of the team leaders are named after plants like most characters in Japanese version, nor are the GO Rocket Leaders named after rockets (or plants for that matter). So, Rhi does not necessarily have to named after a particular seagrass or seaweed.

That said, there's no sufficient evidence to be named after that. The name is too short to be indicative of a specific plant. The prefix rhizo- means root, so it's not unusual that it does appear in a lot of scientific names. Not to means, seagrass can grow by rhizome extension, so it could be that as well. --超龍_「Chao」