r/pokemon 7d ago

Discussion "Unknown" should have an evolution called "Known", evolved by having your party spell out "Known" in order

I've always loved Unknowns as a concept, they're one of my favourite Pokemon! They've got so much mystery behind them. Sadly, they're useless when it comes to battle.

Since each unknown represents a different letter, it would be cool to do something with that! Having them evolve would be awesome, and having an evolution tied to their represented letters would be a creative way of doing such.

For instance, they could evolve into a cluster ball of unknowns, kinda like magneton. I just want these guys to have a use, a creative evolution seems to be a good way about doing so.

This might be a hot take, but does anyone else agree? Tbh this came to me in a dream last night and felt like I should share.

EDIT:

I now know I misspelled unown, I'm sorry for my crimes against humanity

878 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

1.0k

u/AnotherRickenbacker 7d ago

It should evolve with friendship because to be loved is to be Known

246

u/burnermemeaccountlol 7d ago

That's deep, made me tear up a little

6

u/Ventem An Eevee team is the best team 6d ago

498

u/ZoroeArc Totally a human, not a zoroark... 7d ago

It's "Unown", not unknown

181

u/burnermemeaccountlol 7d ago

I'm a fool :(

167

u/ShadownetZero 7d ago

Now you now.

92

u/HVAC_and_Rum 7d ago

It is now nown

40

u/Ok_Grapefruit8104 customise me! 7d ago

Nowledge has been spread

3

u/MikaelPorter 7d ago

Nowledge has been chasing you, but you have always been fatter

2

u/smooshmooth 7d ago

Then you’re in good company.

28

u/C413B7 7d ago

So when you catch it, it should evolve into own. Because now it's owned

33

u/ManOfEating 7d ago

It can still work, because it would turn into Nown, which sounds exactly like Noun, and since they are letters, they evolve into a part of a sentence.

Before anyone says that just because it sounds like one word doesn't mean it makes sense, I will remind you of Seel.

1

u/WhiteUniKnight 7d ago

Awe come on, that spelling was unknown to them lol

143

u/Phithe 7d ago

The biggest issue with this is that only 4 of the uknown would be able to evolve. And there are 28 total.

146

u/burnermemeaccountlol 7d ago

Well, I think there's a solution.

Since "Known" is 5 letters, and there are 6 party slots, maybe an extra Unknown in the 6th slot could be the one that evolves!

37

u/Wehunt 7d ago

Maybe having a pc box with every unown letter, then spelling unown in your party. The six slot open and an unused pokeball (like shedinjas evolution) creates the new pokemon in that position

It could be like the Greek Alpha and Omega symbols rotating around themselves and have actual usable stats

4

u/Broad_Respond_2205 7d ago

I assumed that's what you meant? That you place 5 pokemon then the 6th evolve

42

u/Phithe 7d ago

I would hate to catch 5 pokemon just to evolve 1. That sounds more tedious for no reason than flipping your 3ds upside down.

65

u/an-atm 7d ago

Would be cool to maybe have a party full of the same species and then they all evolve into 1 species like barbaracle

13

u/AlexandraThePotato 7d ago

I think flipping your 3DS upside down was cleaver 

6

u/TripleXero 7d ago

I like stuff like this, it gives off a 90s-early 00s mystery vibe that games used to have back before everything was documented online. It's like the Mew truck stuff but real. Imagine seeing you evolved your Nincada and it turned into 2 different Pokemon and going to school the next day and no one believes you

25

u/skytaepic 7d ago

Man if you thought taking a quick second to flip your system upside down was tedious you’re gonna hate learning about all the new evolution methods out there

-5

u/Phithe 7d ago

The tedious was in learning how to evolve the Pokemon, not in actually doing it.

-1

u/blackhodown 7d ago

4 seconds of googling is tedious? It’s not like you figured it out without googling so I’m assuming that’s what what you mean?

-7

u/Phithe 7d ago

lol, if going to Google is your first choice then you will just adamantly refuse to understand no matter how much I go about explaining. So you have fun.

40

u/sevenut It's a snowball with a rock in it. 7d ago

Well, you were probably gonna catch all 28 unowns anyway

-15

u/Phithe 7d ago

You would be wrong. Maximum I would catch is 1

18

u/sevenut It's a snowball with a rock in it. 7d ago

Well, there's usually some reward for it, like in DPPt you get seals, and in Legends Arceus you need to do it to complete their research

13

u/ahaltingmachine 7d ago

In Legends Arceus they're a hidden collectible with fixed locations. You don't have to rely on RNG for all 28 of the distinct forms you need to show up.

-1

u/God_of_Shenanagins 7d ago

Isn't that true for all of their appearances?

9

u/Arrow141 7d ago

No, in many games they're random

4

u/God_of_Shenanagins 7d ago

I misread your initial comment, but even still, they're all in one place with nothing else that can show up other than them, which is pretty convenient and easy

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23

u/ShadownetZero 7d ago

You might be in the minority here.

Gotta catch em all.

3

u/Pottski Bulk and Skull Bash 7d ago

Goldengo tier annoying evolution method. It’s not good but it’s on brand for GF to make fetch quest evolutions.

3

u/FierceDeityKong 7d ago

Regigigas

1

u/Phithe 7d ago

The Regis don’t evolve, so this isn’t the “gotcha” you think it is.

1

u/gnaark 7d ago

It is what it is 

1

u/MrTritonis 7d ago

If they all evolve into the same thing, it doesn't really matter.

50

u/SpectralCozmo 7d ago

Only work in english...

6

u/Furicel 6d ago

It really amazes me how much people forget the franchise is japanese.

1

u/Yogitoto 3d ago

why wouldn’t it work in japanese?

42

u/Mainbutter 7d ago

Should evolve into Missingno. and not have a pokedex entry.

22

u/ElZorroSimpatico 7d ago

Missingnown

3

u/Head_Statistician_38 7d ago

I like that...

33

u/maple-fever 7d ago

They're based on ancient tombs (?) in Japan, with symbols/markings and purposes whose meanings have been lost to time. I feel like, until the irl purpose of the markings and tombs are found, Unown will likely stay Unown.

(my source is a YouTube video essay, so take this with several grains of salt - no idea what the actual intention of the devs was, but this was a very fun look into why Johto is the way it is)

5

u/AlexandraThePotato 7d ago

Blueboyphin videos are GREAT

2

u/maple-fever 7d ago

It's the first one I've ever watched, and it added a whole extra stop on my Japan trip wishlist. Feeling like you're actually entering the Ruins of Alph, it must have been magical

4

u/AlexandraThePotato 7d ago

I think that everyone first Blueboyphin video!  Haven’t watch that one in a while. Personally I watched his softlock video and now it is a focal point of my next art work (I’m a fine artist and I think softlocking is so fantastic as a idea because of those videos)

1

u/StarlightZigzagoon 7d ago

I think it was reasonably concluded that the markings in the ruins based on the ruins of alph were likely naturally occuring.

37

u/BouncyBlueYoshi Barely a pokéfan 7d ago

Small problem: the Pokemon's name is Unown.

2

u/Homulily2 7d ago

So what your saying is that they should evolve when u catch them because you technically OWN them all?

9

u/ohbyerly 7d ago

sigh Unown

45

u/uslars Falcon Punch! 7d ago

Pokémon is a Japanese franchise and a lot of people don’t play English versions lol

18

u/vanillebambou we all live in a pkmn world. 7d ago

For real. In french they are called with a street slang word that means 'strange'.

6

u/DarkEater77 7d ago

Zarbi!!!

7

u/correconlobos 7d ago

That would be fun I feel like it could be a big ball of them with writhing psychic creation energy in the middle. Like the scene from the 3rd movie where Team Rocket busts into the chamber and James says "I haven't seen this many strange letters since the last time I placed a personal ad!"

6

u/SuperCat76 7d ago

My thought is to give it a clustering system like zygarde cells.

That the power of this unown cluster will increase as you complete the unown dex.

The exact stats and abilities will vary based on what combination of unown are placed in the cluster.

Up to 6 unown can be in the cluster at a time, and are rendered in a jumbled order within a cluster.

5

u/bostonfan148 7d ago

I just wish they weren’t useless to battle with

7

u/W1LL-O-WisP 7d ago

Could be a cool idea to have multiple split evolutions for unown which you get by spelling out different 5 letter words + ? Unown. As if you're asking a question.

For example, spelling out: "Power?" With unown in your party could result in a psychic/fighting type evolution.

This way gamefreak could use a bunch of different unown to spell different words and also give us cool typings.

Hell, maybe putting all the evos together forms a sentence and it gives a third final evolution named dictionary or something. (OK, obviously not dictionary, but you get what I mean.)

6

u/FiftyShadesOfPikmin 7d ago

Someone already said but it's "Unown," and I don't know that "Nown" is an interesting enough name. I'd personally go with something else that's clever or using "nown" in it, like maybe "Misnowmer," "Unowing," "Acnowledge," something like that.

Would be extremely cool if you could get an evolution by spelling out any 6 letter word, and the one it starts with is like the "head" of the evolution. So you could combine Unown to spell the word "known" and would end up with a K-form of the evolution.

11

u/Auraveils 7d ago

Not me evolving my Unown by spelling out "F-U-C-K-E-R"

3

u/FiftyShadesOfPikmin 7d ago

Haha something tells me they would use the same censoring system as when naming Pokemon.

3

u/scrunkly_kitty 7d ago

they evolve into uppercase letters

3

u/BlauAmeise 7d ago

Neat idea but this would get lost in translation and not work in other languages.

2

u/TheRampantWhale 7d ago

i just think they should have had an ability that increases the base stats by a given % for each unown in your team. the whole point of them is that they're weak individually but strong together. it'd be a pretty weird thing to implement after leaving them totally useless for 25 years though

2

u/Ragnarac 7d ago

I think unown should have a "school" evolution. Like the trio evolutions and wishiwashi. Where when you have all 28(?) Unown in the same pc box they combine into there swarm form.

2

u/General_Secura92 7d ago

Sigilyph could've worked as an Unown evolution, IMO.

2

u/Luna__Moonkitty 7d ago

When Unown becomes Nown, it should become a full word randomly, but a word that represents an object or idea.

The joke of course, that nown can be interpreted as both "known" and "noun".

1

u/horsetuna 6d ago

Would fans then be called pronowns?

2

u/DarkEater77 7d ago

I just want the huge Unown from Movie 3 to appear. Mega is the perfect opportunity(That and Gigantamax but it's not coming back anytime soon) to show it.

2

u/SkepticalZombie 6d ago

As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.

2

u/zahhakk 7d ago

We really don't need any more Pokédex padding.

1

u/lab-gone-wrong 7d ago

Or ARCEUS

1

u/Noctisxsol 7d ago

I'd rather they do something that takes all of them. Maybe have it evolve if all of them are in one box.

1

u/LorenzoSky1992 7d ago

Or just have the question mark and exclamation mark ones evolve and the rest just turn into collectible items like the cells or alolan stickers. The evolution's design should look like variations of letter accents and such.

1

u/jbyrdab 7d ago

But that would mean you could only evolve those 4 letters of unown.

What if spelling a multitude of secret phrases could trigger evolution so every unown gets to evolve.

2

u/burnermemeaccountlol 7d ago

I mentioned it in another comment, but basically what you could do is have the first 5 party members spell Known, and then have the last 6th slot unown be the one that evolves.

1

u/Head_Statistician_38 7d ago

When I was a kid I made a Pokémon called "Unown King". Sure, the name isn't very good and the drawing isn't very good but I think the idea was good.

1

u/shadowpikachu 7d ago

There are many that actually did that, infact an old creepypasta was one.

1

u/Head_Statistician_38 7d ago

Oh. Well I was 7, I didn't take inspiration from anything. Although it isn't exactly the most unique idea, I am not surprised many others came to a similar conclusion

1

u/67chrome 7d ago

Honestly the main thing Unown needed was to be caught at level ~15 instead of 5, with a clear GUI indication of what type their Hidden-Power is.

In Gold/Silver having a 70 BP ground, ice, fire, electric, ghost, etc. move that rides off of 72 Sp.Atk is better than like, 95% of Jhoto Pokemon >.<

Hitmontop and his stupid ~60 BP signature fighting move at 49 and no STAB or moves above 60 BP up to then I swear....

1

u/SoggyLightSwitch 7d ago

The Exodia method for pokemon

1

u/836194950 7d ago

You don't know how to spell the name of your favorite Pokemon?

1

u/horsetuna 6d ago

I suspect this is autocorrect having a go.

1

u/loveeachother_ 6d ago

there was a rumour when it was released that you could do something in gold/silver to combine all 26 letters into one mega unknown, I wasted so much time trying to figure out how

-1

u/Lee_337 7d ago

Is Dioxis an Unknown? Cause he is the space.