Welcome to a new post series I’ll be doing called “Legacy of the Inclined”. This is where I’ll be writing about the reasons why I think certain characters, creatures, or other are way more interesting than you may have originally thought.

For the first choice, I decided to go with Venonat. Pokemon Sun and Moon are on the horizon and the idea of these pocket monsters has been on my mind frequently. Now this little guy is not necessarily hated, but he’s not entirely as loved either. Well I hope to change your opinion on this guy with this post!

HAS AN AMAZING DESIGN:

IS A FAIRLY TALL BUGGER:

Most bug pokemon are quite smaller, which makes sense considering they are bugs. Sure Scyther and Heracross are big, but others like Caterpie and Weedle are only a foot tall or even smaller. Venonat is three feet and three inches tall, which is actually big for a un-fully formed pokemon. Arguably he has even been seen slightly bigger in the anime, as you can see in the above image, he is even bigger than an aquatic mouse.

IS A PREDATORY MONSTER:

Venonat doesn’t own a terrifying pokedex entry, but it is interesting. It’s pokedex entry states: “It lives in the shadows of tall trees where it eats bugs. It is attracted by light at night.” What are these bugs it eats exactly? well another entry states:  “Its big eyes are actually clusters of tiny eyes. At night, its kind is drawn by light.” This means that it’s diet consists of living nearly microscopic critters, and its many eyes spot them out. But are these little critters considered pokemon? or are they too small to even be put into consideration?

IS BASICALLY AN OWL:

If most of what you read in the dex entries is similar to a real life animal, you’re not wrong. Venonat shares some similar attributes to an owl, living in trees and coming out at night to stalk prey. I was personally surprised by this, it’s as if this would be the counterpart if generation two, and Hoothoot/Noctowl, never happened.

IS OOZING WITH POISON:

It is said that Venonat spurts out poisonous material from its body on a regular basis, it’s a good thing that this pokemon comes with a protective fur coat. This may be pretty unlikely to most who can only see this as a furry ball of insectoid muster, but behind that pelt is a deadly surprise. He is not the little plushie cuteness you may have originally thought he was.

IS EVOLVING INTO A COOL MOTH:

Venonat does actually evolve once, its evolution is Venomoth. This purplish moth is another Bug and Poison type that was actually part of my core team back in Pokemon Soul Silver version. He was poison-troller and status effector and I loved using him competitively. Venonat evolves into him at level thirty-one, which is a high level to get to especially when you consider all starters evolve out at level thirty-six which is only five more levels higher.

IS PART OF AN AMAZING THEORY:

When you look at these two completely different pokemon together, you start to realize something weird. They both share incredibly eerie resemblances that you cannot deny. That is because some believe the original sprites for these pokemon, during the development for red and green versions in Japan, were most likely mixed up accidentally. It is believed that Venonat was suppose to evolve into Butterfree, with the name Venomoth, while Metapod was suppose to become Venomoth, actually named Butterfree.

Perhaps the big reason it was never spoken of or brought to our attention was because of how popular Butterfree actually became, it sort of became a huge staplepoint for the start of the Kanto region. Also the Japanese developers at Gamefreak probably were too close to release and overlooked the problem til it was too late.

Still, it’s a fun theory nonetheless.

Anyways, thanks for reading! Expect more legacies of the inclined in the future.