There are about 900 different adorable monsters currently available for capture and befriending across the Pokemon franchise. Three of the most well-known Pokemon are Dratini, Dragonair, and Dragonite, an evolutionary line introduced in the original Gen 1 games. Now, one Pokemon fan has set out to ‘fix’ Dragonite through the magic of clever image editing.
Although the Dratini evolution line is beloved by many fans, a number of gamers have pointed out over the years that Dragonite doesn’t look much like its predecessors. Both Dratini and Dragonair feature slim, snakelike bodies, wing-like fins on their heads, and a blue and white color scheme. Dragonite, meanwhile, trades in the sleek and streamlined shape for a chubby bipedal body resembling a rounded orange Charizard.
Outside of the Pokemon world, it appears that Dratini and Dragonair were modeled after East Asian dragons while Dragonite was modeled after popular depictions of European dragons. When this information is looked at in the context of the Pokemon world, however, the logic of the evolution is hard to grasp. Redditor 5H1N0B1-2O recently shared an image edit of the three Pokemon showcasing their attempt to fix Dragonite–in other words, they tried to make Dragonite look more like it might have evolved from Dragonair instead of looking like a lost Charizard.
5H1N0B1-2O’s take on Dragonite tries to keep several important design aspects of Dratini and Dragonair that the original Dragonite design abandons. The most obvious of these is the blue coloring–Dratini is a pale blue, Dragonair is a sea blue, and this version of Dragonite is a bright azure like Marill. It also features white scales on its stomach rather than cream. Additionally, the design replaces Dragonite’s antennae with a set of small feathered head wings, adds a horn to the top of Dragonite’s head and blue orbs to its hands, and transforms the creature’s bat-like wings into feathered ones. The result has a far more celestial look that appears more thematically similar to Dratini and Dragonair.
As of writing, it appears that other fans have mixed opinions about whether or not Dragonite’s design needs fixing. Several users noted that this version of Dragonite could easily be a regional variant of the base Pokemon. However, another group of users argued that what the evolution really needed was an optional final evolution that resembled Milotic or another snakelike Pokemon. Regardless, 5H1N0B1-2O’s edit does maintain the continuity between evolutions better than the official Pokemon designs.
