After months of waiting and anticipation, The Pokemon Company finally unveiled the mysterious Paradox Forms of Suicine and Virizion. From February 27 through March 12, 2023, these Paradox Pokemon will be in raids in the games Scarlet and Violet for trainers to encounter and catch. Walking Wake will always be a water tera type, and Iron Leaves will always appear with a psychic tera type.
Unfortunately these Pokemon are shiny-locked, meaning trainers will not be able to obtain their shiny forms legitimately. The shiny forms have been leaked, however, and can be seen below. These shiny form screenshots were taken from Twitter user @pory_leeks.
These forms had been teased around the release of the newest entries into the mainline series, Scarlet and Violet, and have had fans excited since. Walking Wake (Suicine) and Iron Leaves (Virizion), are finally in the games, but do they live up to the hype?
The original designs of these Pokemon (pictured below) contrast a decent amount from their fully realized counterparts, and it is within this discrepancy that issues have begun to rise. Both of the original designs, namely Walking Wake, appear starkly different, featuring what many fans online believe are superior designs. Between these different designs, as well as general Pokemon fan complaints, there has been some amount of resistance to these new Pokemon among fans.
One look on Twitter and many harsh things can be seen as claims against these new additions to the Paradox Pokemon. Ancient Suicine used to look like a mash-up of all three of the legendary dogs of Johto, whereas now it looks like a funky raptor who hasn't been to a barbershop since the stone age. The future Virizion we have now seems to suffer from the intern forgetting to feed it, when compared to what it originally looked like.
Twitter jokes aside, these forms look pretty good in my opinion, and I will certainly be raiding for a Walking Wake for myself.
One additional complaint that lore-obsessed fans seem to bring up is the fact that an ancient Suicine cannot exist, because of how Suicine came to be. I want to address this misconception, in order to bring some love to these Pokemon. According to Johto legend, Suicine, along with the other dogs, were Pokemon who died within the burned tower. Ho-Oh proceeded to revive these unnamed Pokemon, turning them into the legendaries we now know in the process.
The reason as to why Walking Wake can exist even with this already established origin for suicine is because Paradox Pokemon are just that, paradoxes. According to fan theories at least, none of these Pokemon are actually real, and are imaginative creations, which may help better explain how these Pokemon came to be.
No matter what the case is, this is a very niche discussion. Most Pokemon fans seem simply excited for new forms for some older Pokemon which deserve some love and attention. Wherever you may stand on this discussion,
