Paras Family
Paras is a surprisingly darling insect. Its body is bright and cheery orange, and its oversized googly eyes add to the charm.
Well okay, there are those menacing mandibles resting a few inches below. But if you can ignore them, Paras is still quite adorable.
I can’t say there are many bugs I would call “huggable,” but Paras manages to be one of those.
And then there are the tiny mushrooms growing on its back. They’re the reason Paras is Bug-Grass type. It’s half plant, half insectoid! That’s a fun concept!
Of course, that’s only Paras on the surface. Digging deeper into the biography of the character reveals gruesome connections to the real world. The short version of the story is: Paras is actually a zombie.
Specific insects can be targeted by a special genus of fungus known as cordyceps. These invasive fungi literally destroy their host from the inside-out by replacing all living tissue with their own material. The insect unfortunate enough to have ingested cordycep spores is still alive until it reaches a mushroom-filled rigor mortis. Some cordyceps can even mind control their hosts to abandon their normal behaviors.
In Paras’ case, it’s born with this zombie fungus. It must carry out its entire life performing what the mushrooms command it to do. What a truly eerie existence!
For some detailed trivia, the Pokédex refers to Paras’ mushrooms as “tochukaso.” It’s a shorter way to say ophiocordyceps sinensis in Japanese. This cordycep targets larval ghost moths, which sounds contradictory to Paras’ design. After all, it looks more like a cicada nymph than a caterpillar.
However, Game Freak likely wasn’t going for biological accuracy, but to reference the fungus’ medicinal properties. Indeed, tochukaso are revered in Asia for their many health uses. The list of benefits is surprisingly long, so I’m just going to link to the Wikipedia article again.
In the Pokémon world, Paras’ tochukaso are popular for their life-extending properties. This explains why the Tiny and Large Mushroom items look similar to Paras’, and why they net a fine price when sold at PokeMarts! I like that a seemingly insignificant item found on the ground has ties to a Pokémon’s lore.
There’s even more interesting trivia with Paras. In the generation I games, Paras was the only Pokémon to learn Spore, a 100% accurate, sleep-inducing move. When you think about it, Paras is spreading its cordycep spores onto its target. An even more terrifying thought, what the games call “sleeping” is likely the Pokémon’s body immobilized by the spores.
Today, Spore is a move available to more Pokémom. For all-intensive purposes, It’s probably just a sleep-inducing pollen. But back in 1995, it was Paras’ signature move, and possibly referenced a deadly and terrifying aspect of nature.
Everything about Paras is absolutely fantastic. I wish I knew of a greater word to describe how much I love this Pokémon. It has a detailed and highly impressive biography, referencing a part of nature I wasn’t aware of before it existed! Most of all, it’s flat-out adorable!
Highest Praise!
There’s one more thing about Paras I want to share as a side note. In the 90’s, this collectible card actually circulated store shelves:
This was one of the few times you could see a Pokémon viciously murdering its prey. Since Pokémon usually tiptoes around explicitly mentioning death*, such an illustration naturally boggled the minds of children. It was right up there with Arbok being sliced in half.
(*With some exceptions, especially the Sun/Moon’s Pokédex. Like, it’s seriously ridiculous how much those games detail the ways Pokémon can die. Impressive, but ridiculous nevertheless.)
I love seeing a concept where a creature and a symbiote grow together. In the case of a parasitic relationship, one of the two ultimately advances up the evolutionary tree, while the other regresses.
Paras wasn’t really the one who evolved here; the cordycep fungus has completely taken over, presumably leaving its host’s body as nothing but a husk to move as a puppet.
This is evidenced by its pale white eyes, signifying that they are quite literally dead. And in the spirit of its source material, the cordycep has reached its final stage by bursting into one giant mushroom.
Parasect’s mushroom doubling as a shell is an excellent touch. Not only is it visually striking against the rest of its design, it also adds an extra layer of eeriness to its hollow face peering from underneath.
Parasect’s behavior is relatively the same as its predecessor’s. It acts more as an extension of the cordycep concept, rather than bring something new to the table. And I’m not complaining when I say that. Paras runs with such a perfect theme; it’s wonderful to see it continued with Parasect, with a few changes to keep it interesting. This is the kind of treatment I was talking about in my Golbat article.
Game Freak knew they had a strong concept with Paras, and they kept with it for Parasect!
Highest Praise!
