From the very first Pokémon game featuring Cubone and its dead mother, the series has always had a macabre undercurrent. Though fans have come to expect Ghost types to whisk children away, this list instead delves deep into 10 Pokémon with surprisingly dark backgrounds pulled from the Pokédex.
10 Pokémon With Surprisingly Dark Backgrounds
Kadabra
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t suddenly want to wake up as a Kadabra. That’s exactly what several Pokédex entries for one of the original Psychic types claim can happen – including in Pokémon FireRed, which reads: “It happened one morning – a boy with extrasensory powers awoke in bed transformed into Kadabra.”
Yikes. While the Abra line is known for being ultra-intelligent, I wouldn’t want to go from an autonomous boy to a mammal-like creature that can be captured and enslaved to fight for someone else. That right there is a true nightmare.
Cacturne
This forgettable Pokémon hides a dark secret. According to the Pokémon Sapphire Pokédex entry, groups of Cacturne trail exhausted travelers through the desert. Can you imagine walking along Route 228, feeling a little tired, and sitting down before a pack of prickly, sentient cacti descend on you?
And the last line of the entry creates a little horror story by omission: “The Pokémon are biding their time, waiting for the traveler to tire and become incapable of moving.”
And then what, Game Freak? I hope they’re waiting to give prickly hugs and not something insidious.
Parasect
This one you may have heard before, but that doesn’t make a Paras’ fate any less alarming. Once evolved into Parasect, you may notice the light goes out of the cute little bug’s eyes. This is because, according to Pokédex entries, the mushroom on its back has taken over.
“The bug host is drained of energy by the mushrooms on its back. They appear to do all the thinking.”
Imagine catching a cute little Paras, bonding with it, evolving it, only to have its mind subsumed into a mushroom. And they say Pokémon is for children.
Spoink
Spoink’s Pokédex entries make me wonder if we need to call in a wellness check for Game Freak’s design department. You see, Spoink hops around on a little spring, and, according to most of its entries, if it stops bouncing on said spring, it dies.
Pokémon Scarlet lays it out pretty starkly: “Spoink will die if it stops bouncing. The pearl on its head amplifies its psychic powers.”
It’s flippant how the entry describes its psychic powers after describing how this adorable bouncing pig could croak at any moment.
Carnivine
You’d expect a giant plant Pokémon based on a venus fly trap to be frightening, and you’d be right. Imagine a Carnivine grabbing you as you walked through the woods, pulling you up to that massive mouth.
Its Pokédex entries take this scenario a step further, like in the original Pokémon Diamond entry: “It attracts prey with its sweet-smelling saliva, then chomps down. It takes a whole day to eat prey.”
Can you imagine a Pikachu being slowly digested by a Carnivine? For such a lighthearted series about friendship and doing your best, that’s about as dark as it gets.
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Golbat
Unlike most other Pokémon on this list about Pokémon with dark backgrounds, you wouldn’t want to run into a Golbat in the dead of night, and for good reason. However, its Pokédex entries give it horror movie monster vibes, every single entry describing in great detail how it likes to suck the blood of victims until it is too full to move.
It’s the Pokémon Shield entry, however, that makes Golbat even more insidious: “Its feet are tiny, but this Pokémon walks skillfully. It sneaks up on sleeping prey before sinking its fans and slurping blood.”
Never mind using the phrase slurping blood to describe any Pokémon, the fact that Golbat walks around on its tiny little feet to do so somehow makes it more horrifying than when it attacks from the air.
Gorebyss
Does anyone actually like Gorebyss? I digress. While bright pink with little sea shells for a little Pokébrazier, Gorebyss’s Pokédex entries hide a gruesome truth. Most of them detail that, while graceful, Gorebyss is also cruel, inserting its thin mouth into the body of its prey and sucking out the fluids.
There’s something about how the Pokémon Emerald entry describes Gorebyss siphoning fluids through its “thin, tubular mouth” that makes me shiver.
Hattrem
Hattrem makes this list of Pokémon with dark backgrounds because it’s simultaneously adorable and frightening. Decked out in pastel pinks and blues, you’d think stumbling upon one in the forest would be a magical little moment.
That is unless you’ve read its Pokédex entry in Pokémon Violet: “The moment this Pokémon finds someone who’s emitting strong emotions, it will pummel them senseless with its braids to silence them.”
More like Pokémon Violence, am I right? Another entry even claims a Hattrem can knock out a professional boxer in a single blow.
Malamar
Malamar isn’t a popular Pokémon by any stretch. When it does get attention, it’s more for the unusual method of evolving Inkay into it (you have to flip your game system upside down). But most of its Pokédex entries paint a terrifying story centered around its hypnotic powers: “It lures prey close with hypnotic motions, then wraps its tentacles around it before finishing it off with digestive fluids.”
Gross. Other entries detail how it can force anyone to do what it wants, which gets pretty dark in the Pokémon Ultra Sun entry that claims an “endless number of people” have utilized Malamar for “nefarious deeds.” I’ll leave what those needs are up to your imagination.
Sliggoo
Sliggoo and its pre-evolution Goomy might be two of the cutest Dragon types, but once you read the Pokédex entries for it, that opinion may change. Take, for example, the entry from Pokémon Sun: “It has trouble drawing a line between friends and food. It will calmly try to melt and eat even those it gets along well with.”
Can you imagine a Sliggoo trying to eat your Pikachu – or even you? The Pokémon Moon entry further cements Sliggoo as a horrifying Pokémon, as it describes how it spits mucus to dissolve and slurp up its prey.
After reading Pokédex entries like this, I would no longer live in the Pokémon world if given the chance. I’d probably hop over to an Animal Crossing island instead. Regardless, these are my picks for the 10 Pokémon with surprisingly dark backgrounds.
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