Why does pokemon keep giving me amazing subjects to check out?

For those who haven't been keeping up, there has been a lot of information released on the new legendary pokemon Hoopa, and sweet mother of Arceus, he's awesome. At first all we knew was that it was some kind of ring-based psychic ghost type. Here's some pokedex stuff from X and Y.

X: It gathers things it likes and pushes them through its loop to teleport them to a secret place.
Y: This troublemaker sends anything and everything to faraway places using its loop, which can warp space.

There's been speculation to the origin of Hoopa's design and where it originates. We had some sources from India that seemed a bit familiar, but we now know what Hoopa's deal is. The Hoopa we met is quite literally a ghost of it's true self, and it was apparently punished for misdeeds long ago. However, we do know Hoopa wants revenge right about now. In ORAS there are a TON of legendaries not just from hoenn, but Johto, Sinnoh, and Unova. By meeting special requirements and using the Latios/Latias soar feature you can come across locations that hold specific legendaries. These include...

The Swords of Justice not including Keldeo, the Unova weather trio, the Unova myth trio (Reshiram, Zekrom, AND Kyurem), Ho-oh and Lugia, the Johto lion/dog trio, the Sinnoh myth trio (Palkia, Dialga, AND Giratina, sweet christmas), the lake trio, umm, am I forgetting any non-hoenn legendaries? Yeah, I assume the other three regions are freaking out, WHERES OUR GUARDIAN!?!?

All of these legendaries share something in common, when you encounter them they always appear to come through a portal of some kind, and if you look at the portal itself, it seems to be a golden ring. Yep, Hoopa dun goofed again.

And with the ORAS Hoopa event coming soon, we now know Hoopa's true secrets. For one...


THIS is Hoopa. That other guy was his ghrost. While the cute ghrost Hoopa has a signature ghrost move that lets him break through protects or whatever, THIS GUY can do that, only now he's a psychic DARK type, he has a second signature dark move, and in this move he uses 4 of his hand portals and his chest portal to not only beat the crap out of the opponent from 4 different directions, but also appear behind the target to LAUGH AT IT. In the event you retrieve a lamp from a pokemart worker after he tells you a story about the apparent worthless thing.

A creepy man entered the place while he was in the night shift and had a dead look in his eyes. He ordered the worker to determine the value of the lamp and then ordered him to hand over as much merchandise as he could. Upon leaving, he mentioned how for 3 days, Hoopa's true power will be unleashed, and depending on it's owner, there will be great fortune or misfortune.

... meh, let this random kid have it.

Anyways, Hoopa is freaking awesome! He's an epic genie guy who can use portals to steal entire palaces, islands, AND their riches. What had to be done to seal this thing!?

You know, kinda reminds me of the final boss of Sonic and the Secret Ri... WAIT A MINUTE!!!



Purple, genies, 7 rings, 6 arms, travel through special dimensions... holy crap ._.

Well this turned me on, (and not in a sexual way ) it seems that something out there within the great works of mythology inspired these two guys. And thus began my search for the origin of the ring genie.

My first reference was the name Alf Layla wa-Layla. Note: Lot's of Sonic spoiler shiz up ahead. When you retrieve the seven world rings and confront Erazor Djinn it is revealed Shara wanted to use you to give Erazor the rings so they could rule the world together. Sonic uses his ownership rights to try and slap sense into her, and Erazor gets the rings anyways. In order to gain their control he needs to sacrifice the collector, that being Sonic. However, Shara sacrifices herself to save Sonic and dies. Before Erazor goes to get Sonic this time, the power of the rings overwhelm him and transform his body into a grotesque being. This being claims to be Alf Layla wa-Layla, says he is the embodiment of the Thousand and One Nights, and he wants to recreate the world to his own desire and then move on to Sonic's world to do the same. In the mix of all that just happened, Shara dying, Erazor Djinn turning into THAT, he was able to suck in the rings of sadness, hatred, and rage, transforming into dark spine sonic. He then proceeds to beat the crap out of him, use Erazors lamp to bring back Shara, the world, and imprison him, and then tissues. The end.

So yeah, I can't find any Alf Layla wa-Layla other than in secret rings, which means that Sega made him up for the game. However, there still must be some inspiration out there, since I doubt Game Freak would rip off Sega. Which led to me googling "ring genie". I found the original story of Aladdin, where there are 2 genies. Before the evil sorcerer claiming to be Aladdin's uncle betrayed him, Aladdin kept a ring from him, and inside that ring was a genie. He took Aladdin and the lamp back home, where Aladdin and his mother discovered an even more powerful brother genie in the lamp. With these two genies, Aladdin did all the crap he did in Disney's adaption and the sorcerer took the lamp genie, stole a palace, brought it home, which led to Aladdin flying with the ring genie to kill the sorcerer and retrieve the lamp. The End (oh, and the sorcerer had a brother, but he didn't accomplish anything at all. Look it up).

So we get the significance of genies and rings now, but when did this start? Well that led me to the stories about King Solomon, a real Islamic king who was knows for his great wisdom and travels across the world. In stories his power is exaggerated, often when explorers find what seems to be a new land, turns out Solomon was already there and left all kinds of tips for other travelers. His greatest claim to fame was the seal of Solomon. Basically it was a ring personally engraved by god himself and sent to the king from heaven, and it lent him control over demons. Solomon actually started the trend of genies inside objects by using his seal to trap a mischievous genie in a bottle and throw him into the sea. Centuries later when a fisherman released him the genie used his powers to reward him.

From here there was one last place I could check up to this point, the source of magic rings. There are many fables of magic rings anywhere where rings are a thing, but it probably started with the poet Plato in the second book of The Republic with the story of the Ring of Gyges. The king of Lydia, Gyges, was known as a man who probably killed a guy to become royal or something. Plato talked about a myth that he had a ring that turned him invisible, just like the ring of power from Lord of the Rings. This story was to prove whether or not a man who is not afraid of being caught and punished is moral or not.

That's all I got for now, but I'm sure there has to be some connection out there I can find. Could be that I'm just looking at the wrong mythos. Hindu mythology has tons of deities with lots of arms and colorful skin after all, if Hoopa, Alf, genies, and Arabian culture is based on India, like some people suggest, this may be my next stop. So yeah, this is why I love a good story in my games.

Mecha Leo :

Just wait till you cover the Hylian Shield and Sonic 06.






. . . . .


I'm serious.

Mecha Leo : I can't exactly find what part of this directly belongs in this forum, it might do well in Video Game Crazyness since it does sound a bit crazy, or maybe video games in general. Why did you put this here?

A mythology forum sounds awesome.

Sword legion : I already got the hylian sheild covered :O 06... no. Just... no.

zanderlex : IKR!? Sooo, forum swap?

Mecha Leo :



+





Good research by the way. I've looked into many things like this about other series. Sonic 06, Adventure 1 and 2 come to mind.

I just wish there were more people into game theories like you and me. BTW, Solomon, as I'm sure you already know, was Jewish king of Israel, not Muslim, or Arabic. Though many people from all around came and spoke with him because of his wisdom.

Mecha Leo : Well, what do you think this would fit in the most with?

zanderlex : I thought you'd know

Sword legion : Oh, I said he was Islamic... well Israel, Islamic, easy to mix

Mecha Leo : Well I'm not exactly sure since there's bits and pieces of different forums.

Local Mods : what do you think Faded?

zanderlex : Video Game Craziness. This is crazy and has to do with video games. You can move it because I'm too lazy. HAUGHUGAUH

TheFadedWarrior : Of course you are.... Getting the active people to do the work, what kind of society is this?

zanderlex : you forgot to change the subforum you bum

now we're all screwed

TheFadedWarrior : *Sigh* Blaming the active people too. It can be changed easily by whoever's in charge here.