You know? this whole sandygast issue has me uncommonly sharp. Even I am surprised by how clear things seem; I wonder if I can get this to my Design Fundamentals teacher and skip the next test. "No, Paula, I have no idea why that Gaultier dress has a rooster as its sleeve, but I can deconstruct a pokemon like the best."
When it comes to how "cliche" Sandygast and Palossand's backgrounds are, I'd just say it's par for the course regarding Ghost types. And when you think about it, how would you explain a haunted sand castle a different way without overlapping on previous Pokemon? Sure, it could just be a sand castle, there was no reason for the Ghost type part, but then you'd have the Vanilluxe problem of an inanimate object becoming animated with no rhyme or reason. In my opinion, the Ghost typing makes these two work better.
It does.
That isn't an excuse for using cliches, though; in fact, they're using the ghost type precisely
because it strengthens the concept, but then do the absolute minimum to take advantage of that choice. It's almost preferable that they don't explain why they live, like vanilluxe, than make yet another ghost that has the same characteristics as many more.
Now onto their backgrounds, they're very dark and I won't mince words. Palossand kills Pokemon to make more Sandygasts. That's pretty damn dark for a Pokemon, even a Ghost type. A lot of Ghost types do kill in one way or another, but they're either at night or in certain conditions. All we see about Palossand is it just needs to have its prey sink into its sand, regardless of the time. As for Sandygast, the idea of something coming to life from grudges is not new in the Pokemon world. Banette for example also comes to life from a grudge.
All carnivorous pokemon kill other pokemon; it's rarely emphasised, though, and it's usually watered down with the euphemism "hunts for prey".
Lanturn does it, and it's cute as it can get; so palossand's hunt is only really as "dark" as a lion killing a gazelle is. And as you said, the idea of grudges giving life to a ghost-type isn't new; it's banette all over again, when it's supposed to be THE thing banette has, that it holds a grudge so large about being abandoned that it outright turns it alive; it makes perfect sense, too; puppets and dolls have a long history of creepiness, probably because of the Uncanny Valley effect. Sandcastles, however... not so much.
In fact, if you think about it, sandcastles (and the sarlacc, which some cite, incorrectly in my opinion, as a reference) are mainly stationary, which makes the whole "goes out to hunt prey" all the more suspect, therefore needing of a very good argument on why that was chosen; as it is, it just
is.
Phantump, for example, is
actually dark; a dead, lost child possesses a tree stump? that there is a strong enough image to stand on its own and beat the cliche of "possession"; compared to that, "Grudges of pokemon that fall in combat" is almost cute, in how unremarkable it seems.
I wouldn't call this background cliche though. For something to be cliche it has to be overused and has a lack of original thought. Now yes, you could argue the "coming to life from a grudge" could be cliche, but the method of doing so could be original and counter the cliche. For example, it's cliche that the hero always wins in the end, but the method of them doing so may be different, which is why people keep indulging such a cliche. These sand castles I'd say are the same. Sandygasts are born from grudges of Pokemon that are defeated in battle in the sand. Not necessarily killed, mind you. But then we have Palossand who is stated to straight up kill Pokemon and then could create more Sandygast from that.
Not quite; the hero's journey is an archetype, more than a cliche; an archetype is like a template, a structure where you fill in the
actual important details, and it works because of some complex pattern recognition we unconsciously perform to understand things; it helps the story you want to tell by making it more familiar to the receiver, but not familiar enough to (that is, the details you fill are unique enough so that it doesn't) become a cliche, an already treaded path.
A cliche, however, is something that, original or not, was used so often to lose its importance or meaning; it becomes trite.
To give the banette example again, the grudge backstory is important to her, because it makes perfect sense. A doll coming alive by pure grudge. For sandygast, it's more like a shrug; "we needed to explain why this sandy ghost exists, so
really angry pokemon create it".
Since it uses the same reason than banette, it makes
her backstory weaker, because what made it unique isn't anymore. So you end up with a diminished, less unique pokemon, and a lazy, underexplained pokemon; it makes not one, but two pokemon worse.
So are Sandygast and Palossand original? Well, I've never seen a sentient sand castle, let alone one that hunts down creatures and kills them to create little sand pile ghosts, so I'd have to say yes they are original. Of course if you've seen such a thing, you'd naturally disagree in which I'd love to know where another sentient sand castle like Palossand has been seen. This isn't even factoring in that both these sand Pokemon can control humans under certain conditions in order to strengthen themselves. One part of their background may be cliche with Sandygast coming to life from a grudge, but the rest? One bad apple doesn't ruin the batch.
Oh, they are quite original, I've said so already. But originality doesn't mean much if you can't deliver on its potential, which is where they fail. What I'm saying is that the idea behind them
is good, but the execution was very poor, and that idea deserved much better.
And as I said, one bad apple does ruin the batch; that's what cliches do.
To give you another example, take pikachu clones. Each one of them is less and less special each generation, because they're so restricted by "being like pikachu but not pikachu" that they can't ever truly deliver to the ideas' potential, or even, take that space for a pokemon that would actually not be a cliche.
Another example, the elemental monkeys. A sort of semi-example, the whole fire-grass-water starter scheme; it actually has quite a bit of liberty, therefore potential, but it still presents certain design restrictions that work against it. Same thing for the usual "legendary trio", "mascot trio", "mythical pokemon trio" schemes; all leave room for creativity, but also come with some restrictions because of the place they're needed to occupy.
One more criticism I don't agree with is that many ghost types are using the same tropes, repeating words like grudge and possession. Grudges and possessions are among the defining features of "ghosts", kind of like Grass types and photosynthesis. I didn't see anyone complaining that Fomantis and Lurantis are too cliche, for their descriptions mentioning sunlight. I understand if someone just doesn't like ghost-types, or this conception of ghosts. But it doesn't suffer for lack of originality any more than other type themes.
I'm sorry, but you're mixing two different things in there; photosynthesis, to use your example, is a defining characteristic of plant types, but it doesn't unify them; it isn't a cliche; it's literally their breathing; the differences, and what makes each of them unique, don't lie in that similarity, but in everything else:
- Bulbasaur is a plant-animal hybrid.
- Oddish is a nocturnal plant, gloom attracts prey with sweet saliva, vileplume smells bad.
- Parasect has a plant (fungus, but okay) basically controlling its body as a zombie.
- Weepinbell and victreebel lure prey to their mouths.
- Exeggcute is... something?
- Tangela is a ball of vines.
- Meganium revives dead plants.
- Bellossom dances with the dawn.
- Jumpluff rides the winds to travel.
- Sunflora does have the sun as a main characteristic, but it's justified, it being a sunflower.
- Sceptile travels swiftly between jungle trees.
- Lotad is a plant that lives in water.
- Nuzleaf hypnotizes people with the leaf flute of its head.
- Shroomish lives in dark, damp places to evolve into a boxing dinosaur fungus.
- Roselia smells good.
- Cacturn stalks prey with the cover of the desert's sandstorms.
- Cradily melts prey in acid.
- Tropius produces fruit.
- Torterra has pokemon living on its back.
- Wormadam is there because wormadam.
- Cherrim's thing isn't so much photosynthesis itself, but rather blooming by the sun's direct energy.
- Carnivine is, okay, a more or less rehash of victreebel, never liked it.
- Abomasnow lives in the ice.
- Tangrowth is... tangela. Bigger. bleh.
- Leafeon does include photosynthesis, but since it's the only grass-type to evolve from a non-grass pokemon, that's kind of important to it.
- Snivy's line is more about royalty than about photosynthesis.
- The monkeys... ha, nope, not even deigning to use those.
- Leavanny makes clothes out of leaves.
- Whimsicott is another flying plant, but mischievous.
- Lilligant is about the garland in her head and how lovely it is.
- Maractus is a maracas-using-cactus.
- Sawsbuck's thing is the seasons.
- Foonguss, that it somehow resembles a man-made object because GF had a deadline that day and the coin flip came up "voltorb clone".
- Ferrothorn is just a pain in the behind. Literally. A spiky seed.
- Chesnaught is... well, starter restrictions.
- Gogoat is a goat, not much of interest there, really.
- Phantump was dead children once, wasn't it? (oh, a spirit possessing an inanimate object again, and better done, too), and trevenant is terrifying.
- Gourgeist is about jack-in-the-box-es, cleverly mixed with halloween pranks and pumpkins.
For the new ones, rowlet is about throwing leaves like knives, bounsweet is an air freshener, and lurantis is absolutely
fabulous; and a mantis, in case that wasn't enough.
As you can see, there
are some similarities here and there, but most of the grass types have something other than photosynthesis as a unique characteristic; in fact, plants are a very diverse source of inspiration, and if you mix them with animals, you might not even need the photosynthesis at all. Photosynthesis is used more to give an excuse for their differences, or as a colorful detail, rather than the pokemon's entire reason to exist.
Ghosts can be a very diverse group too, but you have to put some more thought into them so they don't delve into the cliche pool, and if you do resort to it, you have to give them something unique that really makes the cliche you use fade in the background instead of being the pokemon's whole reason to exist.
Wow. Did I just write all this about sandygast and palossand? maybe I
should show this to my teacher.
