Talk:Hondew Berry

Opium

I came across the Hondew/Opium issue by sheer chance. The Hondew is clearly purported as a honeydew, but it doesn't look like any kind melon; melons don't have spots.

Ripe opium pods do have neat rows of blobs oozing out of them, and are green and upright like the Hondew berry image. They also have the effect of making the user 'weak but happy'.

Some people may find the idea distasteful, but I didn't put it in there - I just noticed it. In a world where happy balloons try to drag children to hell and baby lizards wake up in the skeletal carcas of their mother, I don't think it's a stretch.

PorkchopSammy (talk) 17:20, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't object to it on the grounds of tastefulness, but I do think you're stretching. The orbs on the Hondew Berry don't look like "blobs" nor like they're "oozing out of" the berry; they simply look like orbs attached to it, in my opinion. I think it's plausible that they're just an ornamentation Game Freak made up wholecloth to make the berry more visually interesting than a boring, plain melon. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 17:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

There are also plenty of spotted melons. The watermelon, for a familiar example, is sometimes spotted. The Santa Claus melon has spots. It could even be based on a horned melon (also called kiwano), which not only has spots, but spikes as well. --Felthry (talk) 17:55, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

'Spotted Melons' really don't have spots, though, just splotchy lines of pigment. Compare this and [1] to the Hondew Berry, and then compare it to this, and on top of that the effect it has on Pokemon compared to the effect Opium has on humans, and I say there's definitely something with considering and mentioning. It also looks nothing like a real honeydew melon, it's not even the same shape. They're both green, but one's a featureless green sphere and the other is oblong with neatly-organized prominent protrusions.

Either way I'm not saying Game Freak is trying to get kids on drugs, but EVERYthing in Pokemon is based on SOMEthing.

PorkchopSammy (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It is at least worth saying: take good note, "Hondew" is not the "original" name of this Berry, it is originally named after just a 'melon'. Tiddlywinks (talk) 19:28, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It should also be noted, PorkchopSammy, that you're making a huge assumption that raising happiness and lowering EVs is meant in any way to parallel your characterization of opium as "making the user weak but happy." After all, there are also five other Berries that do that, none of which appear to have any similarity to anything drug-related. And none of them got this effect until Emerald — they were originally designed just as generic Pokeblock materials. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 00:51, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone here have an actual objection to this note being added? The person who deleted the change the first time is not even involved in the discussion. Every pokemon page talks about how 'this might be this' or 'could be a reference to that', so I feel my note saying that this looks an awfully lot like that is relevant and appropriate. I'll hold off on changing it back until tomorrow and entertain any reasonable objections put in before then. PorkchopSammy (talk) 02:58, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Like I said before, I think you're stretching too far and are making a huge assumption. That constitutes objecting. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 03:20, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I have to ask if you've looked at the two images PorkchopSammy (talk) 04:15, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

As I said, I don't think the Hondew Berry looks like any of those. The most plausible explanation, in my opinion, is that the orbs are purely the invention of the artist who designed it. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 06:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)