In Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Dialga and Palkia’s new forms have not been well received. Legendaries seem to be harder for Pokemon to pull off these days - rather than the simplistic yet powerful designs of the Kanto birds, new Legendaries have a more forced feel to them, like they have been set aside by the design team while a more is more is more approach is taken, rather than just ‘a bird, right, but on fire’. Gen 3 was the last time the Legendaries had a major impact on the fanbase, and even then you can see Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza moving into the overdesigned sphere. Admittedly though, those three are still better than the Regis and the Lati@s twins, so you have to go back to Gen 2 for a solid roster of winners.Since Legends: Arceus is a continuation of Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, it needed to use Dialga and Palkia, but with those two being possibly the two most Digimon-looking Pokemon ever, the new forms were a chance to reinvent them as cleaner, more controlled creatures. That might have been more fitting for the era too, with Legends set centuries before any other Pokemon game in existence. Unfortunately, the game went in the opposite direction, making them even more complicated. Palkia’s original form is a weird horse-thing, while Dialga gets a lot of extra bumps at notches, looking simultaneously like it has swallowed a hammer and been battered by one.However, there might be a reason for this beyond the fact that the Pokemon team hasn’t created a legendary Legendary since Rayquaza. Twitter user @soodramd pieced together the two new forms, plus Giratina, and has be꧋en able to create a pretty good likeness for Arceus itself, as you can see in the tweet below.
Some players remain unconvinced. It's obvious, they say, that the origin forms were designed as a reference to Arceus, with Palkia becoming a quadruped and both 'mons gaining hind flourishes that resemble Arceus' own. They're right, it is a fairly obvious link - but we have to ask why. While everyone can see these flourishes resemble Arceus', it wasn't until @soodramd put them together that I realised they could be combined into an almost per𓄧fect recreation of Arceus' own. Dialga has the cross, Palkia has the circle, and together they make up the shape Arceus adorns.
Similarly, Arceus' head shape is made up of the top of Dialga's head and the bottom of Arceus'. @soodramd suggests the same of the bodies, but the issue there is neither Dialga nor Palkia have the front legs of Arceus. Does that undermine the whole idea though? I'm not♑ so sure. It's strange that so many people are pointing out that the links are obvious whilꦅe at the same time arguing they can't possibly be deliberately hinting at more.
Giratina comes into it by provid𒆙ing the elongated neck and the flowing tail, and at that point you have all three 'mons combining at about an equal rate to get to Arceus. Issues with the front legs aside, it's hard to argue that, at the very le✤ast, it is possible to build an Arceus out of the three Pokemon most linked to Arceus in the entire series.
That may not mean much. A Jigglypuff viewed from above is the same as a Voltorb, after all. But if we accept, as we all do, that the designs are a reference to Arceus, why is a deeper story off the cards? Fan theories are best when we explore them to their fullest, knowing the games will never go that far. So let's accept this theory as fact - what then could i🗹t mean?
Arceus exists, we've seen it and communicated with it, so it's not a case of researchers getting confused and attributing features of all three other Pokemon into the image of a combined, non-existent Pokemon. So then, were there once two Arceus, with one, for whatever reason, splitting up into three new🧸 Pokemon? Was this split a deliberate choice? A sacrifice? A result of a loss, attack, or war? Or was there just the one Arceus, who then cloned or copied itself to be split off? Perhaps there was no split at all - perhaps, like Adam's rib, each of these three 'mons were made individually by Arceus giving away a part of itself.
It's easy to dismiss this theory, but it's not particularly fun, and doing so complet🌠ely misses the point of making these theories in the first place. We will probably never know exactly why these Pokemon look like this, but 🌟since we'll never know for sure, this feels like a suitable way to fill the void.