TOP TEN Pokemon Evolution Lines that make NO GODDAMN SENSE

[Kagayours]

I got bored while the forum was down.

10.) Kabuto > Kabutops

Ok, so, you look at Kabuto and you think, "it's a small, simple-looking fossil thing that has tiny little claws underneath but other than that it looks almost harmless."

But then you look at Kabutops and it's like "woAH THERE FRIEND"

I feel like there should be some sort of middle evolution here, because we went from a cute little trilobite to Badass McScytheArms way too quickly — especially compared to the Omanyte/Omastar line, which was like, "eh, we made it spikier and gave it more teeth, but other than that it's basically the same thing"

I know this evolution line isn't that weird, but hey, we're only at #10.

9.) Psyduck > Golduck

This is another one where the 2nd stage looks really far removed from the first, but that's actually not my main complaint about it. Instead, it's really the names that get me.

Why is the gold-colored duck named "Psyduck", while the non-gold-colored duck with advanced psychic powers is called "Golduck"?

8.) Dratini > Dragonair > Dragonite

Ok, I know I'm far from the first person to point this out, but, what the fuck happened between Dragonair and Dragonite?

What happened to that slender, majestic form that they were building up? What happened to the gem thingies on its chin and tail? What happened to the wing-shaped ears? Why did it turn yellow?

7.) Inkay > Malamar

I actually don't have any issues with the designs on these. I just can't get over the fact that the evolution is triggered by holding your 3DS upside-down.

6.) Geodude > Graveller > Golem

Whu… What happened to all those extra arms? And why are all your limbs so stubby now? Why is your head shape completely different? Wait, no, scratch that last question — why do you even have a proper head, when the previous two stages just had their faces on their torsos? Where did the turtle-esque shell look come from?? I have questions.

5.) Larvitar > Pupitar > Tyranitar

Why… does a dragon… need… a pupa stage.

I mean, ok, the Larvitar line technically isn't dragon-type, but it does look like it should be a dragon-type (or at least Larvitar and Tyranitar give that impression) and I'm pretty sure I mistakenly assumed it was a dragon-type as a kid, so I'm going to treat it like one.

In any case, why does there need to be a pupa stage? I guess even the name "Larvitar" supports the notion of a pupa stage, since "Larvitar" has "larva" in it — but it… doesn't look like a larva. It just looks like a baby version of the badass dinosaur/dragon/whatever-the-fuck Tyranitar. And isn't the point of a pupa stage in the life cycle of actual insects supposed to be, like, metamorphosis? One creature turning into something that looks very different than what it looked like before? Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly? Because, that's not what happens here. You could've just made a middle evolution that looked about half-way between Larvitar and Tyranitar and I wouldn't have asked any questions. Having a pupa stage doesn't even serve a purpose, here. And it's just… kind of dumb-looking. I would've liked to have a middle stage that actually looked like a middle-stage between the two, but throwing Pupitar in there just feels like a waste of potential.

4.) Pineco > Forretress

Nothing about these pokemon looks even remotely similar.

Like, I guess they both have an overall compact and heavily-armored body type, but… that's where the similarities end. I don't know how one set of body parts was supposed to turn into the other. Pineco is a pinecone, and Forretress is… actually, I have no idea what kind of creature that's supposed to be, but it reminds me more of an oyster or maybe even an insect of some kind, not a pinecone. I don't know why this is even an evolution line.

3.) Bagon > Shelgon > Salamence

??? IS THERE SOMETHING IN JAPANESE DRAGON LORE ABOUT YOUNG DRAGONS TURNING INTO COCOONS AND EMERGING AS LARGER DRAGONS THAT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT???

Like, fuck, at least Pupitar had Tyranitar's spikes. There was at least some connection between the middle stage and the final stage. But nothing about Shelgon resembles any part of Salamence (except for maybe the pattern on Salamance's belly looking similar to Shelgon's shell, but like, come on). And not only that, but, Pupitar might've actually been a decent-looking pokemon if it was part of a different evolution line (or maybe just a stand-alone pokemon) instead of mucking up an otherwise really great evolution line, but Shelgon is just… a shell. A very plain-looking shell, with generic eyes and stubby legs.

Yawn.

And, like, ok, Bagon's whole thing is that it really wants to be able to fly, and that's why it eventually becomes a big, winged dragon. And I guess you could liken that to a caterpillar wanting to be a butterfly, but… eh. I really just don't think that a lame cocoon middle stage is really necessary, especially not when we could've had a cool juvenile dragon-thing that actually looked like the half-way point between Bagon and Salamence. I don't even care if the middle stage was still completely wingless and it didn't get any wings at all until it became Salamence. They already did that with the Charmander line, and, honestly, I don't really mind that, either. And, similarly to Larvitar and Tyranitar, the beginning and end stages already look similar enough that it really can't be that difficult to imagine what the middle stage would look like if it was just a linear progression from one thing to the other. Why did this evolution line need a boring pupa stage?? WE COULD'VE HAD SOMETHING SO MUCH BETTER.

2.) Trapinch > Vibrava > Flygon

What the fuck happened here?

I mean, the Vibrava > Flygon part is reasonable enough. I'll give that a pass. It's Trapinch that I'm concerned about.

If you had never seen this evolution line before, but you saw Trapinch's design, and knew that it evolved into something — what would you expect from those evolutions? Surely you would expect it to keep up the whole desert-dwelling aesthetic and definitely that whole pincer/beartrap mouth thing, right? Perhaps it would evolve into a big crustacean sort of thing, with huge claws similar to the one that it has for a mouth in this stage?

NOPE, DRAGON BUGS.

Literally nothing about Trapinch's design carries over into Vibrava. Not even its giant, trap-y head — its most important feature — is referenced at all in Vibrava's design. I remember really wanting a Flygon as a kid ever since I saw it in the Jirachi: Wish-Maker movie, but I had no idea how to get one in the games. I honestly don't remember when I was actually made aware of the fact that Trapinch eventually evolves into it, but you can't blame me for not figuring that out on my own. It isn't quite as intuitive as some other evolution lines.

Really the only thing connecting Trapinch to Vibrava and Flygon is that Vibrava and Flygon are still both part-ground type in addition to being dragon-type. But, aside from the superficial connection to Trapinch… why are Vibrava and Flygon ground-type? Like I said, they look like dragon-bugs. Vibrava especially looks more like a bug than a dragon at that point. They should both be bug/dragon. Vibrava I could've accepted as a ground-type, if you want to look at it as a ground-dwelling insect, one that lives in the desert or something (although you would have to knock out the dragon-type to make room for it). And Flygon… what the fuck does Flygon even have to do with the ground? It even has fly in its name. It would make a better flying-type than a ground-type (although dragon and bug are still both more fitting). Actually, wait a minute — "fly" could also just be seen as a reference to the insect. It's name is literally just a combination of "fly"(insect) and "dragon". So when it's very name is telling you that it should be dragon/bug, you've made a mistake in not giving it that typing.


Now, before I get to #1, here are a few honorable mentions:

Weedle > Kakuna > Beedrill
Can someone please explain to me why a caterpillar turns into a bee? I assumed Weedle was going to turn into a moth when I first started playing the game as a kid. I mean, if you have two caterpillar pokemon at roughly the same point in the game, and one of them turns into a butterfly, then a moth counterpart just made the most sense to me. But no, it's… it's a bee. Or maybe Beedrill is technically more of a wasp? Eh, it still doesn't make sense either way.

Abra > Kadabra > Alakazam
Abra = decently-sized tail. Kadabra = enormous tail that's probably bigger than the rest of its entire body. Alakazam = NO TAIL WHATSOEVER. Where did it go??? Why did you build the tail up so much during the middle stage if it was just going to disappear all at once afterwards??

Squirtle > Wartortle > Blastoise
Another case of my-tail-gets-increasingly-bigger-and-more-important-and-then-oh-wait-it's-gone-all-of-a-sudden. Sure, Blastoise technically does have a small tail, but it looks completely different even from Squirtle's tail. And unlike Kadabra's massive tail — which was big but didn't actually carry any significance to the creature's lore — Wartortle has several pokedex entries about how its fluffy tail represents the wisdom that it acquires as it ages. But then with Blastoise it's just… gone. No fluffy wisdom tail for Blastoise, I guess.


AND THE MOST RIDICULOUS POKEMON EVOLUTION LINE (and the one that inspired me to create this list in the first place) IS…

1.) Remoraid > Octillery

What the fuck is this bullshit.

Nothing about these two pokemon is even remotely similar, except for maybe their eyes — but the eyes on both of them are generic-enough that I feel like I can't really count it. These are two completely separate aquatic pokemon that were just smooshed together for… some reason.

And, yeah, there are a lot of evolution lines on this list that are probably the result of Gamefreak making evolution lines out of pokemon that previously weren't meant to be related to each other, and then not changing the pokemon's designs to account for that. Like, Vibrava and Flygon were probably not related to Trapinch to begin with (and probably were bug-type originally). Pineco and Forretress might not have been related at first. Golem and Dragonite were quite possibly stand-alone pokemon to begin with. Etc. But at least I can understand why there was an attempt at connecting some of these originally-unrelated pokemon together, even if I wish that their designs had been altered a bit to make the connection more clear. I don't think there's anything you could've done to make Trapinch fit into Vibrava and Flygon's line (in fact, changing Vibrava and Flygon to ground type really just made everything worse), but at least that's just a blemish on an otherwise good evolution line. And I guess they wanted all their cool dragon-types to be part of three-stage evolutions, which is why they felt pressured to throw another pokemon into the mix somehow (or at least, that's my theory).

But there is no reason why Remoraid and Octillery had to be linked together. Maybe they were worried that Remoraid would be too weak and pointless without an evolution? If that's really the case then design an actual evolution for it, or just buff it up and let it be a stand-alone. Octillery is strong enough on its own that it could've been a perfectly-decent stand-alone aquatic pokemon. It didn't need a pre-evolution. Especially one that isn't related to it at all. A remora has no reason to evolve into an octopus, what the fuck.


*sigh* At least everything on this list still makes more sense than most of Digimon's evolution lines.


AND SPEAKING OF POKEMON THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE: I was recently made aware of the fact that Gamefreak actually has official color classifications for pokemon, with many of them landing in a color category that they just don't belong in at all. For example: Snorlax is black, and Dragonite is brown. Ok, sure. Like, it would be one thing if they were just forced to split hairs and classify pokemon into colors that most would argue isn't quite accurate, but you can still understand why they went with it (like the Charmander line being classified as red, especially since apparently there is no orange category). But that's not quite the same as classifying Dialga as "white" when it definitely isn't. I'm not going to go over each oddly-classified pokemon individually, I just wanted to link you all to this so you could take a look at Gamefreak's color-blindness for yourself. :P

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

@Kagayours Also, here's the other thing about Trapinch that is interesting to know. Most guide books that mention it never ever mention that he evolves... not even the official guide books. I did not even know it evolved into Flygon until about generation 5. Generation 5... that's how obscure that evolution change is to me. Also, I have to agree with everything on the list.

 

[Kagayours]

@Kagayours Also, here's the other thing about Trapinch that is interesting to know. Most guide books that mention it never ever mention that he evolves... not even the official guide books. I did not even know it evolved into Flygon until about generation 5. Generation 5... that's how obscure that evolution change is to me. Also, I have to agree with everything on the list.

I think that's just further evidence to suggest that it wasn't originally supposed to evolve into anything. o_o Although, I didn't expect that the change would be so last-minute that they couldn't even include it in the official guide books...

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

I think that's just further evidence to suggest that it wasn't originally supposed to evolve into anything. o_o Although, I didn't expect that the change would be so last-minute that they couldn't even include it in the official guide books...

Yeah, it sure seems like. ( The original Pokedex for generations 1-4 has Trapinch, but doesn't mentioning it evolving.)

 

[Aero Blue]

So, this evolution makes total sense in the most basic of ways but:

Does anyone else find it heartwarming that Diglett's evolution is basically him discovering the power of friendship??????

 

[Kagayours]

Yeah, it sure seems like. ( The original Pokedex for generations 1-4 has Trapinch, but doesn't mentioning it evolving.)

Uhhh. Trapinch wasn't introduced until Gen III, so it wouldn't be in the Gen I or II pokedexes at all. o_o

And it not being in Gen III guidebooks is understandable if the change happened at the last minute. But Gen IV... there is no excuse for Trapinch not being considered part of that evolution line in Gen IV guidebooks. >:/

So, this evolution makes total sense in the most basic of ways but:

Does anyone else find it heartwarming that Diglett's evolution is basically him discovering the power of friendship??????

XD You could say the same thing for Magnemite.

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

Uhhh. Trapinch wasn't introduced until Gen III, so it wouldn't be in the Gen I or II pokedexes at all. o_o

And it not being in Gen III guidebooks is understandable if the change happened at the last minute. But Gen IV... there is no excuse for Trapinch not being considered part of that evolution line in Gen IV guidebooks. >:/

My phrasing was bad on that. I meant it wasn't in a book that included the first four generations ( in number order) for all the pokemon. Hence a 1-4 pokedex generation book. Yeah, it should have been though.

 

[Kagayours]

My phrasing was bad on that. I meant it wasn't in a book that included the first four generations ( in number order) for all the pokemon. Hence a 1-4 pokedex generation book. Yeah, it should have been though.

Hmmm...

But was it a guidebook? Or was it just... some other bit of Pokemon merch?

I know there's a lot of pokemon merch out there that's still officially licensed but has some mistakes here and there. But that's a bit of a different deal than a "Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Complete Guide" sort of thing, where I would certainly expect that everything is 100% accurate.

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

Hmmm...

But was it a guidebook? Or was it just... some other bit of Pokemon merch?

I know there's a lot of pokemon merch out there that's still officially licensed but has some mistakes here and there. But that's a bit of a different deal than a "Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Complete Guide" sort of thing, where I would certainly expect that everything is 100% accurate.

Yeah, my mistake. It was a pokedex book ( I do want to check my guidebooks for generation 5 to see if the error persists, but yeah, it may not have been the guidebook.)

 

[Fel of the Eternal Forest]

where I would certainly expect that everything is 100% accurate.

I admire your optimism here. The thing is with that, is not only do they not care about their official sourcebooks accuracy, they actively don't want you to rely on them. So they're not going to be 100% correct. As far as the Trapinch inaccuracy it's entirely possible that they aggregated the data from a beta version of the game where he didn't evolve at all.

 

[Spammy]

Dratini, Dragonair, and Dragonite do share a continuity of form. They all have similar eyes, rounded snouts, and pale underbellies. The fins on the head develop and become the wings. Notice how what starts as a bump on Dratini's head migrates upward to form Dragonair's horn and migrates further upward and grows to form Dragonite's horn. Dragonite has the same serpentine body as its previous forms, just with limbs.

Pupae generally don't look like either of their previous forms, even in the real world.

The Trapinch-Vibrava-Flygon line is pretty blatantly inspired by real-world antlions, and if you know the metamorphosis that an antlion makes, the evolutionary line makes sense. See here what people generally think of when you say antlion. They dig pits, throw sand at ants to make them fall, have massive jaws, and remind me of the ear worms from Wrath of Khan. Here's an adult antlion. They've got six legs and that's sort of where the similarities end.

It turns out that the original inspiration for Pokemon was beetle collecting, and insects will make incredible changes to their bodies as they develop from larvae to adult.

 

[Kagayours]

not only do they not care about their official sourcebooks accuracy,

?? Are there other mistakes in the guidebooks that I should know about?

 

[Yatagarasu]

HAHAHAHHA

Have you seen the ridiculous sizes of certain pokemons?

They're even worse than nonsensical evolutions

LET IT BE KNOWN THAT LOPUNNY IS THE SAME HEIGHT AS A FUCKING ELECTRODE

and that Mega Gengar is shorter than normal Gengar

 

[Kitti]

Dude have you seen this :

Graveler/Machoke

It's just a silly fan thing but you made me think of it and I find it hilarious.

 

[Jorick]

You forgot one that I would place at 2 or 3 on your list based on the ones there now: Exeggcute evolving into Exeggutor. I'm on my phone so not gonna mess with images, but let me break this down simply.

Exeggcute is 6 eggs that just kind of hang out together, nothing visibly connecting them. One of them is cracked open and apparently faceless, the others have menacing and angry sorts of faces, many of them sporting cracks. They are, for some fucking reason, Grass/Psychic types. Why half a dozen eggs is listed as Grass or Psychic I have no idea. This looks like the type of generic bullshit that should be a Normal type.

And then it turns into Exeggutor... a fucking palm tree. Eggs turn into a palm tree. Those angry 5 egg faces and 1 broken egg turn into 3 derpy coconut faces. Why tho??? What relationship exists between eggs and coconuts? They share a very basic similarity of being things with shells that contain edible stuff, but that's not even near good enough to explain this atrocity of an evolution. The Grass typing makes sense for a coconut tree, but why is it Psychic??? Nothing about either Pokemon design even flirts with the idea of Psychic powers. A fucking batch of weird eggs and a coconut tree should not be doing telekinesis or blasts of psionic power or whatever, that's just nonsense.

 

[IntrusivePenDesperateSword]

You forgot one that I would place at 2 or 3 on your list based on the ones there now: Exeggcute evolving into Exeggutor. I'm on my phone so not gonna mess with images, but let me break this down simply.

Exeggcute is 6 eggs that just kind of hang out together, nothing visibly connecting them. One of them is cracked open and apparently faceless, the others have menacing and angry sorts of faces, many of them sporting cracks. They are, for some fucking reason, Grass/Psychic types. Why half a dozen eggs is listed as Grass or Psychic I have no idea. This looks like the type of generic bullshit that should be a Normal type.

And then it turns into Exeggutor... a fucking palm tree. Eggs turn into a palm tree. Those angry 5 egg faces and 1 broken egg turn into 3 derpy coconut faces. Why tho??? What relationship exists between eggs and coconuts? They share a very basic similarity of being things with shells that contain edible stuff, but that's not even near good enough to explain this atrocity of an evolution. The Grass typing makes sense for a coconut tree, but why is it Psychic??? Nothing about either Pokemon design even flirts with the idea of Psychic powers. A fucking batch of weird eggs and a coconut tree should not be doing telekinesis or blasts of psionic power or whatever, that's just nonsense.

Group of psychic plant eggs, clearly the obvious next step is becoming a psychic tree with three heads.

 

[Darog]

With Tyranitar, it's because it's specifically based on the Kaiju of old, like a nod to the Godzilla franchise. If you look at the likes of Destoroyah, which is a giant demon dragon thing, it's babby form is that of a crab-like creature thing.

Kaiju don't need to make sense, it's all about the end result being badass.

Tyranitar passes it indefinitely :p.

 

[Kagayours]

You forgot one that I would place at 2 or 3 on your list based on the ones there now: Exeggcute evolving into Exeggutor. I'm on my phone so not gonna mess with images, but let me break this down simply.

Exeggcute is 6 eggs that just kind of hang out together, nothing visibly connecting them. One of them is cracked open and apparently faceless, the others have menacing and angry sorts of faces, many of them sporting cracks. They are, for some fucking reason, Grass/Psychic types. Why half a dozen eggs is listed as Grass or Psychic I have no idea. This looks like the type of generic bullshit that should be a Normal type.

And then it turns into Exeggutor... a fucking palm tree. Eggs turn into a palm tree. Those angry 5 egg faces and 1 broken egg turn into 3 derpy coconut faces. Why tho??? What relationship exists between eggs and coconuts? They share a very basic similarity of being things with shells that contain edible stuff, but that's not even near good enough to explain this atrocity of an evolution. The Grass typing makes sense for a coconut tree, but why is it Psychic??? Nothing about either Pokemon design even flirts with the idea of Psychic powers. A fucking batch of weird eggs and a coconut tree should not be doing telekinesis or blasts of psionic power or whatever, that's just nonsense.

But Exeggcute isn't a bunch of eggs. Its pokedex entries make it pretty clear that it's a group of seeds that are commonly mistaken for eggs. And as seeds, it makes sense that they would be grass-type, and evolve into a tree. :P

As for being psychic-type? Well obviously it's a psychic plant, because... Gamefreak felt like it, idfk.

 

[Kagayours]

ALSO, my roommate's been trying to tell me that the reason why Remoraid evolves into Octillery is because Octillery is a cannon and Remoraid is a gun. It's a gun that evolves into a cannon.

...What?

Like, ok, Octillery I guess I could kind of see that. Its mouth is sort of cannon-like, I guess. And its name does come from "octopus" and "artillery", so it does seem like that's what they were going for, even if it still mainly just looks like an octopus to me.

But Remoraid... no.

Supposedly Remoraid is supposed to look like a revolver.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I guess, looking at the two side-by-side, I can kind of see where one set of features is supposed to line up with the others, but... if I really have to squint this hard in order to see the connection, then you have failed at making a fish look like a gun. At the very least, you could've given it a long snout that actually sort of looks like the barrel of a gun. That would be the easiest way to make an obvious visual connection to a gun. But no, that would only make sense.

Additionally, apparently Remoraid's thing is that it can "shoot water out of its mouth at high speeds", which is supposed to be another gun-like attribute.

But like

Damn near every other water-type pokemon can do that.

In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a rather common water-type move that fits that description rather well. And just because the move is called "water gun" doesn't mean a pokemon is gun-like as a result of being able to use it. By that logic, the 84 other pokemon that can learn water gun by leveling alone (not even counting those that can learn it by TM or breeding) are all guns, as well.

Supposedly Remoraid's Japanese name actually contains the Japanese word for "gun", which I guess makes it kind of hard to argue that Gamefreak's intention wasn't for Remoraid to be a gun-fish. But, if that was their intention, then... I say they failed horribly.

And returning to the topic of this thread in the first place -- this means that the only thing that Remoraid has in common with Octillery is that they're both supposedly based off of kind-of-similar weapons that aren't even portrayed well. And if you really want it to be an evolution line, I feel like you still have to put more effort into making these pokemon visually similar.

 

[Kagayours]

The fins on the head develop and become the wings.

But Dragonair's wing-ears don't even look similar to Dragonite's wings.

Dragonite has the same serpentine body as its previous forms, just with limbs.

Dragonite is not serpentine. It's big and chubby. :/ Dragonair is actually more serpentine than Dratini, and if that pattern were to continue, then I would've expected Dragonite to be a lot longer and skinnier than it is. Even if you make the argument that Dragonite is still vaguely serpentine, it's still far from "the same serpentine body as its previous forms, just with limbs".

Its body shape would look much more similar to something like this if that were the case.

Pupae generally don't look like either of their previous forms, even in the real world.

Well, yeah, I get that. But my point is that Larvitar and Bagon don't need pupa forms. Especially in Bagon's case, it gives us a lame-looking middle stage when we could've had a much more interesting juvenile dragon. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense as a pupa. I'm saying that having a pupa stage at all is what bothers me.

The Trapinch-Vibrava-Flygon line is pretty blatantly inspired by real-world antlions, and if you know the metamorphosis that an antlion makes, the evolutionary line makes sense. See here what people generally think of when you say antlion. They dig pits, throw sand at ants to make them fall, have massive jaws, and remind me of the ear worms from Wrath of Khan. Here's an adult antlion. They've got six legs and that's sort of where the similarities end.

But then doesn't that just give the whole evolution line even more reason to be a bug-type? I can give bug-types a lot more leeway with evolution lines because, yes, bugs tend to go through some pretty crazy metamorphoses. But it isn't a bug-type, and it doesn't even have a pupa stage to serve as a transition between Trapinch and Vibrava, so... yeah.

Besides, the jaws on a real antlion aren't that big. They could've still made Trapinch into something vaguely insect-like with snappy jaws that at least don't take up the majority of its body, and then evolving from that into Vibrava would've made a lot more sense to me. Trapinch doesn't even look like an antlion, really. It looks like a beartrap with a tiny body attached.

Dude have you seen this :

Graveler/Machoke

It's just a silly fan thing but you made me think of it and I find it hilarious.

o_o You know... Graveler and Machoke both evolve by trading...

Maybe the original plan was that you had to trade those pokemon for each other in order to evolve them? Which is why they would swap features?

With Tyranitar, it's because it's specifically based on the Kaiju of old, like a nod to the Godzilla franchise. If you look at the likes of Destoroyah, which is a giant demon dragon thing, it's babby form is that of a crab-like creature thing.

Kaiju don't need to make sense, it's all about the end result being badass.

But then why couldn't we have had a juvenile badass kaiju instead of a lame pupa? That's my complaint. >:/

And I never said that Larvitar didn't look like Tyranitar. If anything, my point is that it looks too much like Tyranitar for a pupa stage to even be necessary. A pupa stage makes sense if you have two radically different-looking creatures and one needs to transform into the other. But that's not what's happening here. Larvitar just looks like a baby Tyranitar, so having a juvenile stage in the middle makes more sense to me than a pupa. Not to mention, it would've made for a more interesting pokemon overall.