Type Logic: Of Dragons, Fairies, and Steel

I and two of my friends the other day went into a discussion of another specific facet of "type logic". Two years ago, I had a similar discussion on the Flying and Fighting types, which prompted me to create a post to discuss that as well as a blurb about their general relations. This time, we took to discussing about two of the types I also mentioned in that blurb, plus one additional type that is key to one of them. As the title of this post indicates, those types would be the Dragon, Fairy, and Steel types, which could be said to be the "folklore bunch".

Of these types, I've discussed the Dragon and Fairy types in the previous blurb. Previously, I had stated that they're rather physical, at the least folklore-wise. When we discussed these types in our discussion the other day, we got to think of it in a different way, which is that fairies are magical, and because of this, they would be able to outsmart dragons every which way, and therefore the former is not able to hit the latter. While the physical matter I discussed may remain true to a certain extent, the matter of magic seems to be what seals the deal between Pokémon of these two types and makes the latter type superior.

But then, that same magic is the detriment of the Fairy type against the Steel type. We weren't quite sure what to think of it until someone conjectured that the best way to think of it is that steel objects are reflective, and in most folklore, magical powers reflected onto itself becomes the detriment of itself, which suddenly made quite a bit of sense. I was going to put out my conjecture that steel is at the heart of "industry" and therefore it overcomes magic, but the other conjecture makes so much sense that I've taken to adopt it instead of anything else.

As for the relationship for and against itself that is the hallmark of the Dragon type, it wasn't much discussed and was only briefly touched on. We still seem to have trouble explaining how this comes to be. If anything, it may be considered that with folklore in mind, dragons are supreme creatures, and that their supremacy has the power to affect even each other. With the way that dragons exist in folklore, this could be conceived as the best explanation. For us, we might be able to make a further discussion at some point; for now, the point above stands.

Being that the three of us are fans of Pokémon, discussions of things like types is a natural thing that can arise. These three types that may be considered to be connected by folklore have their own enigmas in relationships and become something to be contended. In the end, there are a few explanations that we may be able to settle satisfactorily on (at least for now) among these three types based on what goes on in folklore. There is a sense that we then help ourselves to understand folklore and Pokémon by each other in this case.

One year ago: Pokémon Annual 2019

Two years ago: Items with a Purpose

Three years ago: Beyond the Boundary... of Languages