Team Rocket could explain Dark-type absence in Pokemon Red & Blue

Have you ever wondered why Dark-type Pokemon were only introduced in Johto? Well, a Pokemon fan theory could explain the absence of the shady creatures in the Gen 1 games, linking them to the presence of Team Rocket and the birth of Mewtwo.

The mainline Pokemon games have had to include hazy explanations for the retcons introduced whenever a new type gets added to the roster. This happened when Dark and Steel were added in Gen 2 and again when Fairy type was brought into Gen 6.

Not only do the games have to acknowledge that there’s a whole new type that no one has noticed before, but they also establish that existing Pokemon had secondary types that never came into play in the past.

A post on the Pokemon Conspiracies Reddit attempts to explain why Dark-type Pokemon didn’t exist in Gen 1 and it’s connected to Team Rocket. The theory states that Team Rocket captured or killed the Dark-types native to the Kanto region to prevent anything from stopping Mewtwo, thanks to its pure Psychic typing.

This conspiracy involves combining the canon of the games and other forms of Pokemon media. While Team Rocket wasn’t connected to Mewtwo until Gen 7, they were closely linked in the Pokemon anime and Adventures manga series.

The theory is backed up by Houndour and Murkrow being native to the Kanto region in Pokemon Gold & Silver, despite not appearing there in Gen 1, suggesting they have returned in the years following Team Rocket’s disbanding.

The absence of the other Dark-type from Gen 2 can be explained by Umbreon not being discovered yet and the Tyranitar line being native to Johto.

While this theory certainly doesn’t appear to be the intention of the creators (after all, they could have added it in the Gen 1 remakes), it does offer some headcanon for why Dark types were mysteriously absent from Kanto by tying it into two of the strongest opponents in the games.