>>46032229You raise an important point: Dark does not explicitly refer to lack of light, in the original japanese it is "evil." However, ALL dark types in gen 2 are nocturnal (with the exception of Tyranitar). Sneasel is nocturnal & cave-dwelling.
It’s fair to assume, then, that a corresponding “light” type would include “cute” or “good” pokemon in addition to ones that actually produced light.
This is, as you mentioned, a foundational idea for Fairy-type.
The last group of Pokemon that were probably intended to be Light-type were the ones reworked when Gen 6 introduced Fairy-type. We found out that Normal-type WAS a placeholder for Togepi, which became full Fairy-type. The pre-G/S anime had always teased it as an ‘unknown type’ of Pokemon, and its dex entries are all happiness-related.
Several of the gen 2 baby pokemon were affected too: Mime Jr. (scrapped from the gen 2 beta, themed around hard-light barriers), Cleffa (with its star/moon motif), and Igglybuff.
Snubbull also got fairy-typed. This brings me to my next point, which is the Goldenrod gym.
The majority of the Goldenrod lineup (miltank not included) are pokemon that went on to become Fairy-type: snubbull, jigglypuff, clefairy. It was not specifically a normal-type gym, it was a "cute" themed gym, and if revisited most of the pokemon used there would now be Fairies.
Immediately after Goldenrod is Ecruteak, with Morty’s ghost-type gym. Morty actually looked considerably more goth in the beta files, with white hair and black clothing. His purple outfit was only in the final version. In introducing the player to two new types, it would make sense to immediately follow a Light-type gym with a Dark-type gym.
