Talk:Legendary Pokémon

Archive #1
Archive #2

Separating Mythical and Legendary Pokémon

The matter of separating the articles of Legendary and Mythical Pokémon is in discussion because of Generation VI's newly introduced disambiguation of the term Mythical Pokémon. I have started a short draft that anyone should feel free to expand. Meanwhile, in response to Bwburke94 (talk) 15:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC):

A better phrasing might be "a related group of Pokémon related to Legendary Pokémon", but I'm being conservative for the time being. I haven't found evidence supporting that Mythical Pokémon are indeed Legendary (as far as Japanese media are concerned), and the fact that recent text refers to all of them collectively as "Legendary and Mythical Pokémon" makes me think they aren't. Mythical Pokémon as an English term may be relatively recent, but 幻のポケモン has always been a thing -- it has been in use on and off since 1998 (potentially even earlier, in Mew ads from 1996). It started catching on (that is to say, being used more commonly) around 2007 or 2008. Prior to that, reference to Mythical Pokémon has been generally informal, with several other terms like 特別なポケモン (Tokubetsuna Pokémon, probably a parallel to Event Pokémon) seen in official media. Ever since Gen 5, it has been in use unambiguously. You can even find a formal definition of 幻のポケモン in Pokescrap's page.

As of today (arguably since Gen 5) the same holds for Mythical, as there is no reference of Mythical Pokémon being Legendary anywhere, as far as I know. Even cases like Deoxys, where 幻のポケモン was originally mistranslated as Legendary Pokémon, are now properly classified. The assumption that Mythical Pokémon are Legendary is natural, and the western community especially is accustomed to the convention for most of the franchise's life, with the proper term coined years after its Japanese counterpart (granted, the term Rare Pokémon was once being used in places like Pokémon Ranger and announcements), but I have to ask: what's the point of including Mythical Pokémon in the Legendary Pokémon page when they aren't officially referred to as Legendary Pokémon? Saving clicks? Is an encyclopedia's mission to pander to the community's fondness of obsolete terminology, or is it to be accurate and in-line with the series' current conventions and lore? Ash Pokemaster (talk) 17:41, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Bulbapedia's mission is not necessarily to be official, it's to be an informative English-language Pokémon encyclopedia, which happens to be a mission that involves official sources. Since we're just going in circles again, let me just point out that when the community searches for "Legendary Pokémon", they expect to find info on Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, et cetera in addition to those normally obtainable within their debut generation. Splitting the page would also have the effect of splitting Mew and Keldeo from their respective legendary "families", to the detriment of the wiki. In addition, my position since the start of English-language Gen V has been that mythicals are a subset of legendaries, and as I pointed out last time we talked about this, North American Super Smash Bros. for Wii U backs me up, while you have not cited an English-language source in your argument. Bwburke94 (talk) 06:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I suppose that we principally disagree on whether Bulbapedia's coverage should be based strictly on canonical sources (which exclude contradicting English-language sources which commonly include mistranslations, although this may also be a matter of argument) or be more in-line with fans' expectations. I will admit I have no source that downright states "Mythical Pokémon are not a subset of Legendary Pokémon", but what's the point of the "Legendary and Mythical Pokémon" statement if the latter aren't a separate group? It would be a redundancy. Your NA Smash Bros. argument only augments my point, if only because the difference between the European and the NA version simply proves that there's an existing ambiguity that the more careful sources (ie. the ones that don't spell Onix as "Onyx") take under consideration. Besides, why should it be taken under consideration over the European translation? What makes it inherently more valid?

I will agree that this is most likely going to go in circles. It would be better to let other people weigh in. --Ash Pokemaster (talk) 07:37, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

People expecting to find Mythical Pokémon when coming to this page can be solved with a hatnote and in-article prose. However, we should be using official definitions whereever possible. --SnorlaxMonster 09:38, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

SnorlaxMonster and Ash Pokemaster, I get what you're implying, and I see your reasoning, but do you actually have a source that directly states mythicals are not legendaries? Bwburke94 (talk) 11:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there is an official source that explicitly shows they're separate groups that don't overlap: Corocoro. In either October or November 2014 - can't remember which - Corocoro promised that every Legendary Pokémon would be available for capture in ORAS. Come the games' release, we saw that this didn't include Mythical Pokémon. EpicDeino (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Corocoro is a Japanese source, and the debate is over the English terminology. However, both the US and UK official ORAS sites made the same claim, albeit with different wording, stating that "between XYORAS, all Legendary Pokémon will be obtainable". Bwburke94 (talk) 07:57, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

No, the debate is not on the English terminology, but on the group to which it refers. They're still called Legendary and Mythical whether Bulbapedia says Mythical is a subset or a separate group. In fact, the page has actually called Mythical by the same name under both circumstances in the past. that isn't being debated right now. What is being debated is whether Mythical Pokémon, a group which exists in other languages as well and is NOT exclusive to the English language, is separate from Legendary. This has absolutely nothing to do with the name of the group when the group itself is the same in the other languages - the idea of things having different names in different languages applies to basically everything else in Pokémon as well, and doesn't prevent foreign language sources from being used as evidence when the subject itself remains identical. EpicDeino (talk) 03:41, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

The debate is on the group to which it refers in English, so this is indeed over English terminology. Bwburke94 (talk) 11:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Mythical Pokémon = Events?

I know for a fact that the only difference I have found from Legendary and Mythical Pokémon is that most Mythical Pokémon are usually event exclusive with even stats all over (most of the time) and that Legendary Pokémon are usually found towards the ends of games and commonly have higher stats than Mythical Pokémon (not counting Mega Diancie). BowserBrowser (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

It's actually even simpler than that. Legendaries are available in-game. Mythical are unavailable in-game. Nothing else you mentioned is related. It has nothing to do with high stats versus low, or being near the end of the game, or "usually" being event-exclusive (even Deoxys, formerly Mythical, has been listed as "other" in the Japanese promotional material and simply hasn't been referenced as either Legendary or Mythical in English promotions since ORAS made it available as far as I know - being event-only is not "usually" a trait shared, but always the case), or whether stats are balanced or specialized. There is a clear-cut distinction between them. (Also, just as a side note, the definition was already on the article before you said this, so I'm not really sure what your point was? XD) EpicDeino (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Deoxys

To avoid edit warring, I'm not changing the page right now (I already had changed Deoxys to say it isn't Mythical and that was reverted, so I'm pretty sure doing so again wouldn't be allowed), but I just wanted to explain the argument against Deoxys being Mythical. In the Pokémon Scrap event, where you had to collect those clippings to earn Shaymin, Keldeo and Victini, the page on the official site explicitly stated something along the lines of "Shaymin, Keldeo and Victini, like other Mythical Pokémon, cannot be normally obtained in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire." This is an official statement that Mythical does always mean event-only, so Deoxys isn't an exception - it's just not Mythical any more. It was before, but it has officially lost the status. EpicDeino (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed this ambiguity until now. You're quite right, it wasn't referred to as a Mythical Pokémon during the ORAS promotion. Granted, it isn't referred to as a Legendary either -- just "Pokémon Deoxys". I think it ought to be classified as a Mythical for the time being, if only because otherwise we might end up revisioning multiple Pokémon way too often (for all we know special "Episodes" that feature Mythical Pokémon might become a regular thing). However, a footnote for its special status is definitely needed, and we have to revisit its situation by the time the ORAS era is over and a new Deoxys event (or game inclusion) makes appearance.

Which Pokescrap page are you referring to, by the way? The definition used in the (now archived) page simply says that Mythical Pokémon aren't available during normal play of the games. It would be interesting if it was indeed explicitly mentioned somewhere that "no Mythical Pokémon are available in ORAS" as far as Deoxys's status is concerned. --Ash Pokemaster (talk) 06:25, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Ah, sorry; I was actually wrong (I couldn't find the page, so I was going from memory) - it doesn't explicitly state "in ORAS." Still, the promotion was for ORAS, and Deoxys has not been called Mythical since, so it should still be valid evidence, right?

Also, I'm not sure it'd be as hard as you say to fix it. I mean, if the official classification changes, we should fix it here, right? We add hundreds of pages whenever a new game comes out, so changing one Pokémon's classification wouldn't be unfeasible under the same circumstances (and even if it's mentioned in a lot of places, if we miss a page when altering it, anyone who comes across it can fix it - this isn't a one-person project or anything!). That said, we don't know what Deoxys IS considered right now, so I would be okay with holding off on changing it until we do. We should just definitely fix it as soon as we do know. XD EpicDeino (talk) 19:35, 10 June 2015 (UTC)