Pokéology: Sableye

Hey guys! Long weekend– got sick and had plenty of projects to work on. On the plus side, I did have off for three days, which led into a two-hour delay. So I had plenty of time with that.

Hopefully you all have had a great weekend though!

Anyhow, here’s Sableye. I think it’s one of the strangest Pokémon for sure in Generation 3, though I could argue that there are weirder Pokémon out there! I’ve always loved the design though, and it sure is a beast with that dual dark/ghost typing. So yep, it has been one of my favorite ghost types.

Basis(Don’t read this in the dark!)

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Yeah, this one is really apparent. Looks exactly like them, doesn’t it?

Although Sableye doesn’t have the exact winged “mask” shape on the face, I think it’s pretty evident that this is the basis.

This is the Hopkinsville goblin. Though, people mainly call it the Hopkinsville Alien.

It’s known as one of the most famous cryptid/alien encounters, and it really set the stage for future encounters. It defined the whole ‘little green men’ thing with all the flashy light pizzazz.

Basically, someone saw a meteor and assumed it to be an alien spacecraft. They then heard noises outside and saw a strange sparkly creature running around outside. Later that night, they went out again and saw something on their roof that seemed to be horned. They shot at it and it seemingly disappeared, and their house was later full of bullet holes from all their shooting. Yet none hit it.

Well, you see the pictures they gave of it. What do you think it looks like?

Call me a skeptic, but really. See the face? It has a sorta mask coming down from the winged horns, with two huge gleaming eyes.

Here’s the official explanation by the U.S. Air Force: they correctly stated that there was a meteor storm earlier that day, explaining the strange lights. This was on file at many stations, even independent ones irrelevant to the U.S. government.

Next, a local circus had reported a monkey missing.  Guess what it had on? It was wearing a silvery clown outfit. That would perfectly explain the first creature they saw running around outside their house.

However, finally, they heard strange noises and ran outside to another strange creature with a weird, winged mask.

So, looking above, can you guess what easily explains that?

The horned owl is a rare species of owl that happens to be found in Kentucky. It’s not exactly something you see every day, so it’s call is very strange to a new person. They also claim to have seen it on a roof, which also matches perfectly to a horned owl– where else is an owl gonna land?

Sure, you can say that none of this is solid proof, but look at the faces and try to tell me that you wouldn’t be freaked out by just seeing two glowing eyes and what looked to be a winged mask? Also, try shooting an owl and get back to me on how hard it is to shoot that thing.

Finally though, it’s easy to explain why they thought they saw all of this. Hysteria, but in a small group. Once they saw the meteors, everything became suspicious to them. So things that a normal person would find funny or normal suddenly became weird and exaggerated.

 

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Biology

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As always, when hasn’t a Pokémon been weird looking? Sableye sure isn’t an exception.

Let’s start with the body though. It’s a dim, greyish shade of purple-blue. It appears to be made out of a solid substance, rather than pure shadow or ectoplasm. Evidently, it doesn’t have specific organ system though, as the gems it eats become parts of its body. This means that yes, it is a ghost– it has a physical presence that is beyond biological origin.

So about those crystals, they clearly help Sableye’s spiritual side to interface with reality.  I’ll break this down a little more.

To get it out of the way, Sableye’s back is covered with them. I’d assume that this is where it stores gems until it needs them– to replace injured or old parts.

However, the blue gems seem to be used as a sort of ‘eye’ to see into the physical world with. It’s scientifically accurate to use a crystal as a eye, as they do have great properties in the world of optics. This would mean that, technically, Sableye could see behind its back using the back-up gems.

As for the red gems, they seem to signify some sort of heart? Now, a ghost doesn’t need a heart, but if you think about the way it’s shown consistently in the chest of a Sableye, it symbolizes it in some manner. Maybe it functions as the link between the physical and spiritual world?

Though, to be fair, the Pokédex implies the eyes were turned into crystals by eating gems, but using this logic, the body processes the eaten gems into needed parts. I’d prefer to think that it isn’t exactly random, as most Sableye are shown to be pretty similar. Plus, it’s a ghost– it’s not following any logical, scientific process.

In the end, it’s a ghost, and I don’t think even the designers could completely explain it.

Anyway, how about those claws? It apparently uses its claws to dig vast tunnel systems in search of crystals. However, this would also be great self defense if any Pokémon got curious about those crystals. Sableye isn’t exactly the biggest Pokémon, and the eyes would stick out like a sore thumb in the caves it calls home.

 

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In retrospect, it wasn’t a great idea to write that basis while I was in a dark room alone, haha.

So, here’s the typical ghost question: Is it evil, a friendly trickster, or misunderstood? I think it just wants to live its after-life eating crystals, personally.

Suggestions? Comments? I’ve had a lot of great suggestions, but I had a realization this morning about what Sableye is when reading articles about Cryptozoology– and naturally I had to do it.

∆Mechanos∆