Flame Rounds: The Exeggcute With The Exposed Brain

Flame rounds lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame rounded?)

Richie: And following on from last Flame Rounds, round two is all Cunzy1 1's 

Cunzy1 1: Right this one might need a bit of explaining, I'd like to flames round (verb?) the grass and psychic Pokémon Exeggcute. Even if you've got only a passing familiarity with Pokémon you'll be aware that most of them are based on animals, plants, myths or household objects. Exeggcute is an egg cluster Pokémon made up of six egg-like creatures with faces. However, it's not just the whole clutch I want to flames round, specifically, it's the one which has a cracked shell. I don't like the way it's brain(?), yolk(?) is just exposed like that. Fucking disturbing dude. And each Exeggcute appears to have one as this camera trap photo shows:

Exeggfuckinggross more like

Richie: Right first, we need to address the elephant in the room, despite their misleading name they are not eggs, they are seeds (hence the Grass typing). That being said, I wont immediately disqualify you on grounds of incorrect reasoning here... yet. However, since they all look like that, are just meant to look like that? Its not hurting them, It may even be a good thing for it to expose itself.... Why do you want to hurt it so bad?

Cunzy1 1: Explain the fucking psychic typing then? That's their brain capable of psychic waves and for the one whose head/face is broken it's yolk/brain is just out there. Open to the elements. When it rains it gets wet. You might accidentally throw a berry in there. Or touch it. It's like eyes. You shouldn't touch/lick eyes or exposed psychic brains. Especially in a fight. Pikachu used thundershock. Oh shit Pikachu, you gave 1/6 of Exeggcute permanent brain damage now. Some lightning got in the brain and now it can't taste fish or turn left.  

Richie:But there are a plethora of disturbing/disgusting ones out there: The Vanillish lineage literally all of their faces/head can melt, Spoink's heart will stop beating if it ever stops hopping, and don't get me started on the ghosts! Why is a cracked seedcase more worthy of elimination than the bounty of nightmarish Pokemon existences that are out there?

Cunzy1 1: Because those all make sense. This one is because someone got bored of drawing eggs with faces so drew a cracked one and now every Exeggcute out there has to live with being able to taste the wind through their brain. I bet it's this one that turns into the scary mank face in Alolan Exeggutor.

Oh Christ. Look at that. It's simple. It ain't right. It looks like a Ditto trying to do a Gulpin that had a stroke halfway through. It looks like one of those too inbred dog breeds where the brain falls out the back of the skull. This is body horror. In a kid's game (it's not just for kids). 


Richie: Right this is a tough one! So I wondered if perhaps there was an official reason for "the exposed brain", and as with most pokemon origins, their stories can take you on a rabbithole journey, and it seems Exeggcute is steeped in Yokai lore... Exeggcute/Exeggutor seem to have taken their inspiration from a subset of Yokai which are plants that take on human Features:  

Bashō no sei - Japanese banana spirit

Said to be a spirit that haunts banana groves, and takes the form of a human face to scare people near by. The most hilarious part of all this is it is also said if a woman walks by at dusk she will get pregnant... So what forms are the bananas taking? Pretty safe to say unlikely to be the origin of Exeggcute. 

Ninmenju/Jinmenju - Human Face Tree

This one seems to be the money for the Exeggcute line and needs a fucking trigger warning! Jinmenju trees are said to have human faces for fruit, they are constantly laughing, when one laughs too hard it falls to the ground.  The fruit has a sweet/sour taste. It is said that the seed also has a human face.

I mean this is all Nightmare fuel, far beyond that of that little Exeggcute you hate so much showing off it's endosperm. And as nice as it is to know the origin of where it comes from, I am now leaning towards Flame rounding all Exeggutes, Exeggutors and Alolan forms! 

Beyond this I wondered if there was any reasoning from the Pokedex for the cracked exeggcute, and there are a couple off references over the generations. 

Yellow States: The heads attract each other and spin around. There must be 6 heads for it to maintain balance. This makes me sad, we can just flame round one then... as we might just tip the rest of them over the edge....

Silver States: The shell is very durable. Even if it cracks, it can survive without spilling the contents.

"Spill" Ugh that is the worst word to use, and makes me think liquid/yolk again... but again I'm reminded that this is just a seed inside, and probably just a yellow endosperm.

Ruby/Sapphire States: It consists of six 'eggs' that care for each other. The eggs attract each other and spin around. When cracks increasingly appear, it is close to evolution.

This provide the the most compelling argument that these little guys should be left alone, in all actuality the little mingin' exposed brain is gonna be the main dude evolving to become Exeggutor, though its really worth pulling on that thread, as it's one of these Pokemon which are separate Pokemon then evolve to become one gestalt bigger one (Magnemite/ Metagross etc).

With this in mind, I'm sorry, but I cant flame round Exeggcute for super effective damage, as much as it looks like his brain may be exposed, does this justify ending that poor little cracked head guys existence? How can we flame round him! I mean he is the guy that is closest to evolving, if you flame round him do you not stop it evolving completely? If you separate it from he other 5 are they just going to cave into suicidal depression? 

I'm also fairly confident that that in the Pokemon universe even if his brain was exposed it wouldn't cause damage in the same way (i.e. no lasting damage, and even if there was, a super potion or a nurse joy just fixes that right up anyways).  However much this causes your OCD to flare up, when you start to apply actual biology to Pokemon you'll get so many triggers.  For instance one that gets me is, that red bit in the chest of Gardevoir/Gallade: 

Assuming it goes all the way through, Imagine grabbing ahold of it and wobbling it about, surely that would generate a feeling akin to having your ribcage pried apart? How can it sleep with the constant fear of turning over?

In consolation for this however I will give you a hat: