>>52812616They both are. Ghost consistently does the ACTUAL shadowmancy part of controlling darkness in the form of shadows, as though shadows were an elemental force. But the thing is, unlike basically ALL other fantasy settings, shadows and pitch black darkness/void are being treated as distinct entities in Pokémon's universe. Shadows and pitch darkness are NOT considered different forms of each other, they are distinct.
People will tell you Dark =\= Darkness because of its Japanese name, but if we're being honest that's quite squarely bullshit. Of course Dark Types are related to darkness, they're fucking BLACK, and many are nocturnal. It's not just an English thing. But the thing to understand, is that Dark Type is 95% about underhanded battle tactics and its ties to actual darkness ARE 100% THERE but they are in the background. It is extremely rare for Dark Types to ACTUALLY control darkness primarily. What's going on here is that Dark Types are doing the "Darkness is evil" trope, but 99% of the time they're just using darkness as an AESTHETIC. It's not usually part of their attacks or power set to have umbra magic.
It's not "they're creatures of darkness, so that makes them evil". It's, "they're evil, so we'll use darkness to aesthetically convey that".
