4. Drifloon
Drifloon is supposedly formed by the spirits of humans and Pokémon. That in itself, you must admit, is quite odd– perhaps it’s the summation of the Trainer/Pokémon relationship, explicitly expressed in the afterlife? Well, no. It’s actually a horrible abomination. It tugs on the hands of children to pull them away from their parents. There’s a name for people who do that, but they aren’t usually disguised as balloons, something which children are fascinated by. There needs to be no van offering free sweets, or a promise of a free puppy– Drifloon simply just IS a balloon, and it drifts near where children in play in the hopes of kidnapping them. Okay, I may have gone over the top there, I’m pretty sure Drifloon is not a paedophile. But why does it steal children?
This is something not yet explored in the game series, and in fact all reference to it stealing children seems all but forgotten in the latest installments, as the creators seemed to have realised it was more sinister sounding than intended. Its Dex entry did, however, say that it often ends up being pulled around by the child instead, but even that isn’t really any consolation. It’s like a serial killer coming to your house, then discovering he’s trapped in the house and can’t escape, so he decides to live with you instead.
Later Dex entries suggest it’s a “signpost for wandering spirits”, which is fair enough– a lot of Ghost Pokémon have some weird link with humans that hasn’t been fully explained (as further posts will show)– but children are not wandering spirits. Unless these children are meant to die or something, but that’s just horrible.