Regigigas VSTAR · Crown Zenith (CRZ) #GG55

3 comments

1. 

   Ambassador 🇰🇷

   (2 years ago)

   This artwork might be the first official depiction (and therefore confirmation?) of Regigigas doing what so many of his dex entries have suggested he once did.

   Here are a couple of examples;
   DP: There is an enduring legend that states this Pokémon towed continents with ropes.
   PLA: According to legend, Regigigas pulled landmasses together and bound them with rope to create the continent of Hisui. Though I have my doubts, the story could well contain a shred of truth.

   The mythology and design of Regigigas is interesting to me because I don’t think we’ve got the whole picture yet – and westerners tend to relate it to things I find unlikely to be relevant. So I was glad that in recently looking into it I found a Bulbapedia forum post where someone has observed that, while obscured by use of cipher alphabet, BDSP has given Sinnoh’s cities entirely new names¹. Snowpoint City, the town just outside Regigigas’ Snowpoint Temple, has been renamed Ōmitsunu City. Ōmitsunu was a giant god that used ropes to pull land from the Korean peninsula so as to expand the size of Japan.

   So then this card isn’t just a little bit of inconsequential fun – it might be showing Regigigas engaging in a little bit of imperialism². I mean, I’m adding it to my head-canon, and you’re free to do as you like.

   ¹ https://forums.bulbagarden.net/index.php?threads/sinnohs-new-language.286674/ || https://archive.is/4CfQB
   ² Alongside the apparent reclamation of several Russian territories as being part of Sinnoh, Generation IV-associated games seems to be the most imperialist in the series. Fun times!

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     TwylisAmbassador 🇰🇷

     (2 years ago)

     This artwork is a lot more rough and sketchy than most modern Aya Kusube art, which inclines me to interpret this not as a literal canon depiction of Regigigas moving continents, but instead an in-universe artists’ illustration in a manuscript or something. The reliability of dex entries is pretty heavily contested, and I’m broadly inclined to take them as literally as possible myself, but I don’t extend that grace to dex entries that only allude to “legends” and things that have “long been said”. I think Regigigas was probably just really good at moving heavier-than-average rocks.

     That said, I’d say the Ōmitsunu parallel definitively establishes what Regigigas’s real-world basis actually is.

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       AmbassadorTwylis

       (2 years ago)

       I actually think you’re right, but insofar as depicting myths as reality I’ll say this – had this card come out in 2008, I’d have hated it for depicting the myth as reality. At this point in the series, had it been a binding/”canon” depiction, I’d just enjoy it for what it is. I know the fanbase has this predilection with assuming newer games “retcon” older games¹ but I see them as entirely separate things².

       ¹ I think BDSP/PLA are actually playing with this misconception a bit? My suspicion is that the protagonist of DP was “plucked” from their timeline, thrown into PLA, and from there caused a divergent timeline that leads to BDSP’s tweaked version of events occuring, rather than DP. I was originally thinking of “The Sea’s Prince” as a combination of cute metatextual + bootstrap paradox, and now I’m seeing BDSP’s diverging city names in a similar light.

       ² This was originally a much longer post mulling about the “canonicity” of dex entries and the influence of the anime in the way the Pokémon franchise handles its own myths – going from folklore to “real things that actually happened” – and contextualized why I’m so partial to Regigigas and its lore sticking to the former. One day I might clean it up for conciseness, and post it somewhere where it’s a better fit.

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