>>47112121I'm iffy on this solely because Gamefreak tends to build characters around plant names to begin with. The problem with Mina and Ilima switching types is that their names have to do with their respective placement and typing in game. For example, Mina is named after Arabian Jasmine. This was one of the favorite plants of a Hawaiian princess due to it's pretty white blossoms and relaxing sweet scent. It was imported over by merchants and actually got an official Hawaiian name, pikake, after her favorite imported pet, a peacock. It's basically a fairytale story, and it is likely why Mina was put in the Seafolk, a village of traveling merchants. Not to mention that a sweet, fragrant, plant like that would be more in line with an artsy, relaxed, airhead that has ribombee as an ace. Also, that princess story makes it kind of hard to give that name to a boy in my opinion due to how specific it is. To note, ilima also has to do with Hawaiian royalty, but it's more royalty in general.
Ilima is a native coastal/ dry forest plant that is the official island flower of Oahu. That's the island that Melemele is based on. It's associated with royalty because the blossoms only last a day when cut. Hence, only royalty could get peasants across their domain to collect the thousands of fresh flowers needed for a one day lei. Ilima’s nickname in game, young prince, is a reference to this. He’s not an actual prince, but he’s well dressed, lives in a mansion, and is treated as Mr. perfect dreamboat in the anime. To tie him to normal types, Oahu is also the island that’s the most inundated with invasive species due to its large population. This is why the normal trial is held there with totem raticate/ gumshoos. Both are based on a case of Hawaii’s actual invasive species problem. Ilima flowers also doesn't have a noticeable fragrance. That's kind of boring and normal I guess.
That's it. Hope that this hunk of autism explanation doesn't fall flat on its face.
