5 interesting Unown trivia that Pokemon fans need to know

The Pokemon Unown was introduced in the core game series with Generation II and the Gold and Silver games. It was one of the earliest multi-form creatures in the series, possessing 28 forms based on the Latin alphabet and universally used punctuation marks. However, these creatures still have much of their identities and lore shrouded heavily in mystery.

Even if we don't know everything about Unown in the Pokemon series, there's a lot of interesting trivia to glean from the games, animated works, and other Pocket Monsters media. With that in mind, it doesn't hurt to examine some of the more intriguing bits of Pokemon trivia surrounding Unown that might be pretty fascinating for some fans.

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Five intriguing trivia facts about Unown in the Pokemon series

1) It cannot learn any status moves

Unown can learn many moves, but none that inflict status changes (Image via The Pokemon Company)

While Unown can learn plenty of different moves in the Pokemon series, it has the rare distinction of being the only Pocket Monster (as of Generation IX) that cannot learn status moves. It cannot inflict status effects, change the weather, or raise/lower the stats of a target or itself, among other effects. It's unclear as to why this is the case, but the fact stands regardless.

Perhaps something about Unown's biology prevents it from using these specific moves, or there may be a gameplay reason for it. Either way, Game Freak has remained mum on the subject.

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2) It's the only Pokemon with a base stat total of 336

Unown has a very unusual base stat total in the core series games (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Throughout the core series of Pokemon games, most Pocket Monsters can add their base stats together to achieve a total base stat count that is divisible by 10, but Unown doesn't share this commonality. Instead, Unown's base stats (48 HP, 72 Atk, 48 Def, 72 Sp. Atk, 48 Sp. Def, 48 Spd) result in a total of 336. It's the lone Pocket Monster that possesses this stat total.

It remains to be seen if this design choice was an intentional reference to something, but it does make Unown even more unusual compared to many other creatures.

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3) It's stronger in numbers for a reason

Unown is stronger in groups, and this is due to a design choice (Image via The Pokemon Company)

In non-game Pokemon media, Unown is typically quite weak on its own but can be incredibly strong when in groups. However, when fans think about it for a moment, this design choice makes a lot of sense. After all, a single letter being used to convey information is far from effective, but when several letters and symbols are brought together to form words and sentences, information is conveyed better.

Unown's strength relative to how many individuals are near each other is representative of how several letters and symbols come together to inform readers and permit the flow of ideas and concepts. Since Unown is essentially a warped iteration of the alphabet, it only makes sense that individual Unown letters wouldn't be of much use while a group of them is much more dangerous.

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4) Unown has some unreleased forms

A specific Pocket Monsters movie suggests there may be even more Unown forms than expected (Image via The Pokemon Company)

The Pocket Monsters movie Spell of the Unown: Entei otherwise known as Pokemon 3: The Movie had a particularly strange moment for Unown that may suggest it has even more forms than those seen in the games. During the movie, a brief look at Professor Oak's computer shows many unique Unown forms that don't appear in any other forms of Pocket Monsters media.

The forms include those that resemble letters seen in the Greek and Cyrillic languages. It's unclear if Game Freak ever intends to add these forms to the games or if these forms may have just been an inclusion for story reasons for Spell of the Unown, but either way, they're quite intriguing to think about.

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5) Its form and shininess are tied to IVs in Generation II

Originally, Unown's form and shiny appearance were tied to its Individual Values (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Generation II's games were well-known for introducing shinies to the series. However, while many shiny Pocket Monsters appeared based on a slim percentage chance, Unown worked in a significantly different way. Instead of being based on a percentage, an Unown's letter form and its potential to appear as a shiny were tied to its Individual Values (IVs).

IVs are known as values that allow stat variations between members of the same species. Interestingly enough, IVs also dictated which form of Unown would appear during a wild encounter and whether or not a wild Unown would appear as a shiny. However, in an odd turn of events, the assortment of IVs in Generation II only allowed the "I" and "V" forms of Unown could appear as shinies.

While fans assumed this was intentional on the part of Game Freak, it's important to remember that the term "IVs" is a fan-made term and the fact that the I and V Unowns were the only ones that could be shiny at the time was likely a coincidence.