Talk:Unown (Pokémon)

Due to special coding in place in the article, the artwork featured on this article will change every year on November 21 and October 15 in celebration of the releases of Gold and Silver in Japan, and Gold and Silver in the United States. This will only affect the artwork shown in the infobox. This changes every year, so when the time comes, here to return to the page and change the display.

Due to special coding in place in the article to illustrate Unown's forms, certain displays will change showing Unown in its A form. This will only affect the base stats entry which is unhidden, the Pokéathlon stats entry which is unhidden, the sprite shown in the evobox, and the minisprite shown below the spritebox. This changes every second, so when the time comes, click here to return to the page and change the display.

O sprite

Has anyone else noticed that the Unown O sprite is smaller than it should? -Groudon465^{Talk | Decks} 15:34, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep. I think someone resized it to 64x64 or something, rather than 80x80. Tina^☆♥♫ 15:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I recently fixed it, it was a different size than the rest, and it had a white background, so yeah... It's fine now. TTEchidna 01:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Tablet translation

Um... Do you have any idea what the tablet says in that picture? I've translated it from unown;

FRIEND
SUBETE NO I
BETSU NO IN
NANIKA WO

Any idea what this means? Im a bulba 02:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

DP040's trivia section has it. TTEchidna^G_SDS! 02:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Legendary?

A book I have lists Unown as legendary. Is this accurate? (I don't have the book now, though) -- Glitch Pokémon. Official Pokémon. There is no real difference between the two. In my opinion, the two should be considered equal!-- quoted by Missingno. Master 20:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No. Unown isn't legendary. It starred in a movie, but its stats cause barfing even moreso than Phione's, and.. erm, yeah. Tina ^δ♫ 20:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Unown are Legendary Pokémon though, it states so in the movie. TESHIGIGAS 21:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No it means they are legends. If Phione is hardly considered legendary all of Unown's very SUCKISH stats make it absolutley NOT legendary. Crystal Lucario 22:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Phione is legendary. It's confirmed by Pokémon.com. Unown are ancient and the like, but they aren't legendary. Tina ^δ♫ 22:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I know thats why I said HARDLY CONSIDERED Crystal Lucario 22:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Unown is legendary, then so is Arcanine. Dragonite. Tyranitar. Salamence. Metagross. Garchomp. Just because they have legends associated with them (Pokémon of legend) doesn't mean they're legendary. TTEchidna 22:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I always had the impression the were legendary. TESHIGIGAS 18:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yea, same. --Theryguy512 18:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's review the facts. It can't breed (even with Ditto!), it's genderless, and it has legends associated with it. Sure it has piss-poor stats and is common as hell, but so is Phione, and if THAT thing is legendary, I don't see why this isn't! -- Glitch Pokémon. Official Pokémon. There is no real difference between the two. In my opinion, the two should be considered equal!-- quoted by Missingno. Master 11:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There are no "rules" when it comes to legendaries. However, I do not count Unown as legendary. I mean look at it's place in the PokéDex. Wobbuffet comes after it. Plus, it has never been called a legendary. Legends and legendary are two different things. Glinn 12:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Here lets vote... say YES or NO

I say NO Crystal Lucario 12:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I say YES. TESHIGIGAS 16:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. --Theryguy512 16:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

YES GAH--C Is for Cookie 16:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

• Well I guess it is settled most of us think it is legendary so therefore-- it is... Crystal Lucario 18:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

How is it legendary? Glinn 03:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no way that explains its legendary status. The only evidence that possibly signifies it being legendary is that there are many forms of it and it resides in an alternate dimensionPokeManiac102 03:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

NO NOT LEGENDARYPokeManiac102 03:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Here, let's not vote. Unown is as legendary as Ditto is. Ditto can't breed with itself. Unown may be associated with legends, but it's not legendary in and of itself. TTEchidna 03:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that's like saying that Phione is not legendary, but it has been confirmed that it IS a legendary. I'm gonna try sending a letter to Pokemon.com and see what they say about Unown's legendary status. --Theryguy512 12:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Good idea.Crystal Lucario 12:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

its not legendary!!! end of story.Shiny Lucario 12:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WE ALL KNOW THAT!!! WE JUST HAVEN'T DECIDED YET! Crystal Lucario 12:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not too sure still. Stat's don't really prove a thing. TESHIGIGAS 15:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Just seen the new mailbag. Unown ain't legendary. -- Glitch Pokémon. Official Pokémon. There is no real difference between the two. In my opinion, the two should be considered equal!-- quoted by Missingno. Master 23:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Since when was it ever? Cause it was neverPokeManiac102 00:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh well, it was in my mindC Is for Cookie

Unown are NOT Legendary. You can catch more than one in the games, therefore eliminating any possible chance of them being Legendaries (I know, Phione can be gotten from Eggs as many times as you want, but Phione is officially counted as a Legendary). Diachronos 16:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

"Legendary" isn't actually an official status, so it could be considered legendary or not. I personally don't think it should be called a legendary because there are loads of them and you can catch them releatively early in most of the games they appear in. (P.S. Can someone tell me how to sign my edits?)

You type four of these things: ~ (tildes) you can also hit the button that looks like a squigle on top of the box where you edit or the four tildes underneath it.--MisterE13 19:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

How the heck is unown supposed to be a legendary!thats ridiculus because thier are way more than one unown theres like a million--Blastzard 16:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)blastzard

If it isn't legendary, then it's the only non-legendary Pokémon to be in the Rare category in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.--Chaos Theory 02:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Which is probably the same as Arcanine is legendary, since Unown have a 100% encounter rate in all the areas you can find them.- MK (^t/_c) 20:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Runes

Theres no such thing as Celtic runes, runes are Norse (aka, Viking, Varangian, Rus, Germanic). The Celts did have a writing system but it looked nothing like, Latin or runes, Ogham is written with a line going from left to right and then you put a number of downward or upward strokes, straight or slanted to the left or right. The letter E for instance would be 4 straight lines going from top to bottom thru the middle line sorta like -IIII- this. Lowlandlord 10:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

He he he...I think Politoed is a legendary! Let's have a poll to see who else agrees with me that Politoed's a legendary! Because I like it! And because if Phione is a legendary, then I just don't see why Politoed can't be! --ニョロトノ666 00:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

No way no way!!!! GAHHH!!!^PokeManiac₁₀₂ 00:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

YES! WOOHOOC Is for Cookie

Yea yea whatever, I am "THE OPTIMATUM". omg, that story had so many errorsPokeManiac102 00:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, my typing grammar is TERRIBLEC Is for Cookie

• cough* Um, guys, get back on topic. If you want to talk about random stuff that doesn't have to do with Unown, please do it on one of your talk pages or the forums. --Theryguy512 10:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

He's right...but I really need to think about those 'runes' Optimatum^Talk|♊11:07 11 Mar 2008

I suddenly immensly regret joining this website for some reason Lowlandlord 14:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

!?

I dont actually own any of the johto games, so can someone tell me: were the unown ! and ? available in gen 2, or were they introduced later on? 折り紙ガイ - 離す貢献 09:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

They were all available in Gen 2. Glinn Mgraw 09:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No. ! and ? were introduced in Firered/Leafgreen, i believe. They weren't in Gold/Silver/Crystal. Takoto! 10:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Technically, they were first programmed into RS. You just couldn't catch them until FRLG. --FabuVinny ^{|Talk Page|} 16:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Who comes first: "!" or "?"?

Which one of the two non-letter Unowns is listed first in the Pokédex from Generation IV games? Is it "!" just as this article lists them? --Johans 21:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The Gen IV Pokédex lists them in order in which they were caught. Not in any alphabetical type of order. I think that "!" is listed first because "exclamation" begins with an "E" which comes before "Q". ~$aturn¥oshi ^{THE VOICES} 19:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's becaus it starts with an "e." I don't really know, but I'm pretty sure you are right.Taviource 19:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course the gif image reverses that. ~$aturn¥oshi ^{THE VOICES} 19:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think "!" comes before "?" because in the Japanese set counterpart of EX Unseen Forces, It has "!" as 66 and "?" as 67. ^Moldy_Orange 19:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's a more game related explanation: The index numbers of Gen III list "!" as number 438 and "?" as number 439. ~$aturn¥oshi ^{THE VOICES} 20:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's another game-related explanation: The Seal Case lists the Unown seals in alphabetical order. It also lists the Shock Seals (Unown !) before the Mystery Seals (Unown ?).KinCryos 07:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

is this an error

As of Generation IV, Unown has 28 derivative shapes. There are 26 English alphabet characters, plus two punctuation marks: ? (question mark) and ! (exclamation mark). That shape is determined by its personality value.

As of Generation IV? --lord mada 10:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. We are currently in Generation IV and nothing has changed. I know you would think Generation III but that's how it works. --☆ケンジガール 11:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Locations Wrong?

Are the locations wrong? Because it seems that one can search any area of any level and still find most of the Unown in that area. Should this be fixed... because it would seem to mislead anyone trying to catch their "missing" Unown. - unsigned comment from Ben111112 (talk • contribs)

I completely agree. I've been able to catch all except for ! and ? in one of the tiny rooms in the second floor. --Hoaxygen 00:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I just realized those locations aren't for Diamond and Pearl. --Hoaxygen 05:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

They are completely wrong. As you go down the floors, 2,3,4,5,6,7 have F,R,I,E,N,D, respectively. This really needs to be changed by someone who knows how. You randomly encounter every other letter when you are in the side rooms. - Janis

Umm... The locations mentioned on this species page, per letter, are for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team's dungeon Unown Relic. You're talking about the Solaceon Ruins in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. You're thinking of the wrong games. - Kogoro | Talk to me - 05:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Which sprites?

Why do we have the U Crystal sprites instead of A like everywhere else. I think it might be interesting, if time consuming, to collect all it's sprites from the different generations. We could even create a collapsable ('cause it'd be huge) sprite box for ALL the forms. we could also do it for Arceus. I think some of the ones with less forms already have a similar, if not collapsable sprite box. Also, why do we have the F artwork? Is it the only one Ken Sugimori did?--MisterE13 01:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Name origin

Isn't it just Unown, which is simply "belonging to nobody"? Why this stuff with corruption of "unknown"? --HTMLCODER.exe 18:00, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't find any dictionaries that accept unown as a word. — Laoris _(Blah) 18:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I get it, he means Un (negation)-own (belong to) it may be just a coincidence though, I've always accepted the corruption of unknown.--MisterE13 00:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm no English expert, but I'm almost completely sure that the only definition of "Unown" refers to this Pokémon. Plus, the very trademarked Japanese name is Unknown, based on which I find no place to questioning the name origin in this case.--Kaoz 20:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

If it were simply "belonging to nobody," it'd have to be Unowned. This is because "own" is not an adjective or adverb, but a verb (or noun in some cases), which doesn't make sense if you add the un prefix. Adding -ed converts it to an adjective and then you can find it in the dictionary. I think it makes more sense if it's just a corruption of "unkown" as it "nobody knows what it is, what it does and where it comes from." This way, it's more consistent with the movie/episodes. --Hoaxygen 23:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

its unown as in unknown as in it is not known to exist, even thuogh it is known--Blastzard 16:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)blastzard

Purge?

What does the purge link in the beginning of the article do? IIMarckus 22:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Changes the form in the evolution box. The Dark Fiddler - Nos hablamos? 23:09, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It'll eventually do other things too. Such as the spriteboxes.--MisterE13 23:20, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there GF artwork of the other shapes or only F?--Kaoz 17:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been wondering that myself. I think we had one of all of them but they were all to small or something. If you can find any more good looking ones than F, feel free to put them.--MisterE13 17:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Images

The sprites for the games...we should make it consistent so it's the same letter/sign. i.e. Let's say it loads up Unown A, the sprites for all games are all A... ^ht14 03:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with HT14. --Theryguy512 03:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I love consistency. XD シンジ_ShinjiLover,Edits 03:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

We do not currently have any official art for forms other than the F currently shown. — THE TROM — 08:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Even so, we should get the game sprites: G/S/C/R/S/FR/LG/E/D/P/Pt... ^ht14 13:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

TTE's gonna fix it so they're all displayed semi-randomly (like Arceus) after that, people should start to see which ones are needed.--MisterE13 21:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, that's cool. ^ht14 21:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Revolving images

I'm more than happy to see if I can make a revolving image where the different Unowns are listed, one after another. Also, what happens if an Unown ! or ? gets traded to a Generation II game where those Unowns didn't exist?--Thomas Michael William Patrick Sales 19:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Err...ok, keep that to somewhere else. Also, Gen II Pokémon cannot be transferred to Gen III. ^ht14 21:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

English?

It says in the article that there are 26 English charcters. However, there are other languages that have those characters, such as Espanol (Spanish), Francais (French), Italiano (Italian), and many others. Unown are based off of the characters in those languages, which in turn are based off of the Roman characters. The very words that you are reading are Roman characters formed into words that we have learned to understand. Pawsrent 15:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Correct. Although from what I can tell, it is more commonly known as the Latin alphabet than the Roman alphabet, so I have changed it to say so. Werdnae (talk) 21:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Unown and Suicune?

Crystal made it VERY clear that the Aurora Pokemon and the man, man, MANY Symbol Pokemon have something to do with one-another.

What is that?BigOlBulbasaur 19:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Other than appearing in the Johto games, apparently nothing. It seems that they just wanted to accentuate both the variation in the Unown, and the increased role of Suicune in the plot of the game, so they put them both in the intro. Werdnae (talk) 20:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Does anything happen if...

You send out an A, B, and C Unown in a Triple Battle and have them all use Hidden Power? TorchicBlaziken ^{(talk•edits)} 01:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably not? —darklordtrom 10:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What is this.

"In Pokémon Emerald, they move in a way that seems to be a figure 8. If 8 is dropped on its side, it becomes the symbol for infinity, meaning "never-ending"." Seriously, what the heck is this? Why is it there?--Celebi96 02:37, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it was referring to the motion of the sprite animation. Given that it is both contrived and speculatory I've removed the trivia point from the page. Werdnae (talk) 02:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

trivia

I think there are some trivia that should be removed from this page, here's my opinion:

• It has the smallest movepool of all Pokémon, learning only one move, Hidden Power, and being unable to learn any other moves through TMs, HMs, and Pokémon breeding (as it cannot breed). It shares this distinction with Ditto; however, it can potentially expand its movepool through the use of Transform.

It's obvious that this Pokémon has the smallest movepool of all, it only learns a move, which is the minimum for every pokémon, so it's seems really useless state this.

• Despite having their own movie about their power, they are relatively weak in the games due to a very shallow move pool and a low base stat total.
  • Their power of warping reality is barely acknowledged in the games. Only the Pokédex data in Pokémon Platinum even hints to their power, saying that "an odd power is said to emerge" when two or more are together. Nothing special occurs when two Unown are sent out side by side in a double battle, however.

Really, does this ever make sense? A lot of things are different between anime and games.

• Unown is the only Generation II Pokémon that has not been featured in a Ranger series game.

There are a lot of other Pokémon never featured in a Ranger game... My opinion is to remove all these trivia--SamuStar 19:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I completly agree with everything you stated above. Games=/= Anime so the second one shouldn't be there. The first one should stay, it's completly true and it's an interesting notable tid-bit. I'll wait and see if there's any other input before removing them. --Pokemaster97 20:14, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, keep 1, and the "odd power" needs to be noted, and that is a pretty satisfactory way to do it, IMO. ♣♣ Ƒǿҫὑṩ ❺❽ ♣♣ 20:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

So, are we going to remove only the Ranger trivia? --SamuStar 15:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Artwork

Here is some artwork I have of the Unown. They are straight from the Pokémon Platinum Prima Official Guide whatever. All of them are over the 1280*1280 limit, which I will fix soon. --Abcboy (talk) 04:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Those are official, but not Sugimori's. It looks like a western designer was asked to draw them, but they look much better than Dream World arts. |) u |( e ® 12:04, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

So...do they need to be uploaded? We have lots of unused artwork on the Archives. --Abcboy (talk) 01:55, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not against uploading them, and I realize we have a bunch of unused stuff already, but what would we be using them for? I'm only asking because we already have about 10 or 11 different versions of the Unown alphabet we can use, including sprites, Dream World, PMD character boxes, Box art... it wouldn't hurt to have them just in case though. R.A. Hunter Blade 02:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what they could be used for. They are much bigger than all our other artworks. --Abcboy (talk) 02:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Sprites

They should all be F Unown because the F Unown is usually used to represent the Unown species as a whole.

Pokemon nomekop (talk) 19:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Sprites

I personally think we should change the sprites to either I or V so the shiny sprites can be consistent, cause right now it's shiny sprites are for A even though this is technically impossible. - unsigned comment from MawileCeyvis (talk • contribs)

Even though I and V are the only legitimately possible Shiny Unown in Generation II, all the other Shiny sprites are still programmed into the game, so I don't see the problem. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 00:48, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Funny Thing...

I managed to get a ?-form Unown to win the Cleverness master ranking. The crazy thing is, I went from Normal to Master in only 5 attempts (only one loss!). Anyone else accomplish this?

Needz mor Pikachu...and sum Mudkipz two...[Pikachu1770] (talk) 07:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC)