>>52101642>what makes this fucking thing normal?The same rule that makes sawsbuck normal/grass but gogoat pure grass: it's arbitrary. If gamefreak wants a normal/grass type, they'll make a fucking normal/grass type. Stuff like heliolisk could be anything ranging from pure electric (it's just a fucking elemental lizard) to electric/fire (solar powered), electric/ground (desert lizard, sand veil) or electric/dragon (frilled lizards are kind of a meme animal in japan like wooper loopers, and were used as inspiration kaiju designs sometimes), but they wanted electric/normal so that's what you get.
Normal is non-elemental wild animals, pink blobs (but just some pink blobs), sound, wild cards, jacks of all trades, plush toys, digital ducks, undefined elementals or elementals that shift element, god, typeless (but not actuall ??? typeless) or "vanilla ice cream flavor" depending on what gamefreak needs it to be at any given moment. For arboliva, normal is just the vanilla flavor to whatever grass' flavor is (mint? pistachio?).