#302: Sableye

Creepy fan art of Sableye. It uses its sharp claws to dig through
the earth and excavate gems, which it then devours.

Now, this Pokémon is a real gem, literally and figuratively. The dark/ghost Sableye is inarguably, indisputably, irrefutably an obscure and creepy but unique Pokémon. A goblin-like creature with sharp teeth and claws and eyes like diamonds that sparkle in the dark and allow it to see in low light, it is feared by many people because it's said that looking directly into its eyes will cause it steal one's soul away. Those eyes are not the only gemstones to be found on its body, though: it has a red gem on its chest, and on its back are a blue and green gemstone as well as another red one, which is probably a reference to the trio of games of the generation it debuted in. The diamond eyes and gem-like adornments on Sableye's body are the result of its diet, which consists of rock and raw gemstones. It even preys on Carbink, but it is apparently too slow to catch them, as they're usually taken by Gabite before Sableye can even do so much as to lay a hand on them. The whole gemstone thing extends through its Mega evolution as well: all the energy from Mega-evolving is concentrated into the red jewel on its chest, which detaches from Sableye's body and significantly increases in size, leaving a small hole in Mega Sableye's chest. Mega Sableye now shelters itself behind the large and heavy jewel, which is said to boast such incredible hardness that nothing even leaves so much as a scratch on it. Hiding behind the jewel comes with some benefits and disadvantages: Mega Sableye can take advantage of opening its targets leave exposed, but supporting the massive jewel makes it too slow to turn around, which makes it vulnerable from behind.

I especially like the lore behind Sableye's design, though. Brace yourselves.

Amazing fan art of Sableye picking its teeth after a delicious
meal consisting of rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

Sableye is based on the Hopkinsville Goblin, which is claimed to be an extraterrestrial being encountered in the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville in the state of Kentucky (where the chicken comes from). On an August day in 1955, five immensely dumb adults and seven extremely gullible children arrived at the Hopkinsville police station claiming that small alien creatures in a spaceship repeatedly popped up at the doorway or peered through the windows of their farmhouse, attacking them. They had been holding the creatures off with gunfire for four hours, or so they said. Four remarkably clever city policemen, five unusually intelligent state troopers, four outstandingly bright military policemen from a nearby army base and three incredibly smart deputy sheriffs were concerned about a possible gun battle between local citizens and decided to take a look anyway, even though they found nothing but holes in window and door screens made by firearms. The story got widespread coverage in local and national press, although details such as "large pointed ears, claw-like hands, eyes that glowed yellow and spindly legs" only appeared in various media much later than the date of occurrence. A couple of exceptionally wise sceptics presumed that the creatures were just great horned owls - which have pointed ears and yellow eyes and aggressively defend their nests - that were misidentified by the hopelessly stupid Hopkinsville people because they were intoxicated, yet many tremendously crazy people called ufologists regard the whole affair as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents.

Yeah, right. Alcohol ruins lives, people, so drink responsibly.

Anyway, The Hopkinsville aliens are most famous and popular in Japan, where they have appeared in various anime shows and video games, including Pokémon: the 'spindly legs' part caused the creatures to make swaying motions that are even demonstrated by Sableye's 3D movements in Gen. VI and Gen. VII.

Official art of Mega Sableye.

Unfortunately, neither regular Sableye nor Mega Sableye are very good in battle. The latter is even tied with Mega Mawile for having the lowest base stat total of all Mega-evolved Pokémon, at 480. That's not particularly a good base stat total for a Pokémon that is not holding an item other than a Mega Stone. Mega Sableye has excellent defense and special defense, sure, and its ability Magic Bounce lets it bounce back most status moves to the user (I think the only exception is Memento), but its mediocre HP stat doesn't back up its great defenses and its attacking stats are no more than decent. However, Sableye - and therefore also Mega Sableye, obviously - has access to reliable recovery in the move Recover, priority damage in Fake Out and priority Will-O-Wisp due to the Prankster ability; be careful, because regular Sableye is quite frail and Prankster will change into Magic Bounce upon Mega-evolving. As for the fourth and last moveslot, Foul Play is a decent option to attack with, as this move uses the opponent's attack stat rather than Mega Sableye's attack stat. It'll pay off most of the time, and even if Foul Play should be weaker, it's still a STAB move. For more reliability you could also use Knock Off, which even knocks off the opposing Pokémon's held item, rendering it unusable for the rest of the battle. In that case, Impish is the preferred nature for Mega Sableye, boosting its defense and lowering its special attack - which it isn't gonna use, anyway. Using regular Sableye is out of the question, unless you teach it Taunt and give it the Leftovers, which can make it somewhat viable as a blocker for Pokémon that want to set up an entry hazard or try to remove yours. There are much better options out there for that, though, and it is much better to just use Mega Sableye instead.

Sableye as seen in the anime. 

I think Sableye has an interesting and unique design and flavor to it and I definitely consider its Mega as one of the most original ones. Sableye has never been one of my favorite Pokémon, but I have to say that I've gotten more respect for the people who created it, as even I acknowledge the distinctiveness and originality of its design. Of course, at the end of the day it's just based on yet another mythical creature, but at least this time it's a mythical creature from modern history rather than ancient or postclassical history; the Kelly-Hopkinsville event was pretty recent in comparison, occurring 'only' 62 years ago. Moreover, this whole gemstone thing used to be unique to Sableye until Carbink and Diancie came into play, so it's not as if there wasn't some thought put into Sableye's whole concept. This Pokémon's getting a solid 4-star rating.

Rating: 4/5