I’m Luke Summerhayes and I love Flabebe.
The sixth generation introduced a brand new Pokémon type, the fairy type. Being the first game set in Europe, and with a storyline focused on ancient history and a stone circle, it was a fitting time to do it. Fairies, fey or the fair folk are common in European folklore, particularly Britain and Ireland.
At different times in history, the word fairy has encompassed many things and carried many connotations. Early precursors from Gaelic tradition are nature spirits, not too far removed from the animist gods of Japanese Shinto. Christianity’s spread demonized fairies as fallen angels, and later the word began to encompass al manner of entities like goblins, elves and gnomes. Eventually, as new-age sentiment tried to reclaim pre-christian beliefs, our image of fairies settled on beautiful little waifs who sit under flowers or cling to them in a breeze.
Flabebe is a fairy-type pokemon, a colorful creature with small arms, no legs and big ears like the wings one might see on a fairy, clinging to a flower.
X
It draws out and controls the hidden power of flowers. The flower Flabébé holds is most likely part of its body.
Y
When it finds a flower it likes, it dwells on that flower its whole life long. It floats in the wind's embrace with an untroubled heart.

Flabebe can be found with five different colored flowers, though at this stage the Pokémon’s own body does not change color.
Ultra Sun
It's not safe without the power of a flower, but it will keep traveling around until it finds one with the color and shape it wants.
Ultra Moon
Flabébé wears a crown made from pollen it's collected from its flower. The crown has hidden healing properties.

The name flabebe, which is the same in all languages, combines flower with bebe, the French for baby. Naturally it doesn’t stay a baby and at level 19 it evolves into a floette.
Floette has grown to a size so rather than living on the flowe, it looks more like it holds the flower like an umbrella. It still floats jauntily through the air beneath its chosen plant, seemingly without a care in the world.
X
It flutters around fields of flowers and cares for flowers that are starting to wilt. It draws out the hidden power of flowers to battle.
Y
When the flowers of a well-tended flower bed bloom, it appears and celebrates with an elegant dance.

In classic fairy lore, fairy circles are rings of emptiness among plantlife, and stepping into them or messing with them could put you at the mercy of the fairy’s magicks.
Ultra Sun
It raises flowers and uses them as weapons. The more gorgeous the blossom, the more power it contains.
Ultra Moon
It gives its own power to flowers, pouring its heart into caring for them. Floette never forgives anyone who messes up a flower bed.

As well as the regular Floette with its five colored flowers, at the end of Pokemon X and Y we see the character AZ, an ancient immortal king, reunited with his Floette, for whom he caused all the magical nonsense of the plot. This one has a unique color scheme and flower, and has never officially been made available to players, though it is in the code of the games, with its own pokedex entries in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. It will return in Pokémon Legends ZA, and if it finally finds its way into players’ hands, it may get a special episode.
The name Floette is again consistent across all languages and again combines English and French – the English word flower and the French suffix -ette. It’s not a baby but it is still only a little Pokemonette until, with a Shiny stone, it evolves into Florges.
Florges incorporates the flower into its own body, becoming an elegant fusion of plant, mermaid and dancer in a beautiful dress.
X
It claims exquisite flower gardens as its territory, and it obtains power from basking in the energy emitted by flowering plants.
Y
In times long past, governors of castles would invite Florges to create flower gardens to embellish the castle domains.

AZ and his Floette lived for millennia but in the world of Florges, that isn’t so far beyond the norm.
Ultra Sun
It controls the flowers it grows. The petal blizzards that Florges triggers are overwhelming in their beauty and power.
Ultra Moon
Its life can span several hundred years. It's said to devote its entire life to protecting gardens.

Once again Florges’ name is consistent across languages, combining flora, or plant life, with gorgeous.
Although fairy type was introduced to combat the dominance of the dragon type, Florges never had a major role in the videogame competitive scene. Friend of the show Mikey from Pokemon Crossroads got in touch about its role in the trading card game.

The Pokemon TCG doesn’t ban cards in the Standard format. They usually let the card run its course and try to print counters to it. That way the usage of the card will go down and eventually just fade away. Rarely do they ban cards from the Standard format unless it creates a toxic gamestate that prevents the opponent from playing the game.
The Expanded format is another story. Because of the huge array of cards that enter the cards, there is no way to know how a modern card will interact with a card printed back in 2011.
Or in this case, printed in 2018. In this case, we are talking about Flabebe from Forbidden Light.
This Flabebe is a simple Fairy type Pokemon card with only 30 HP. So simple that it has the simple Tackle attack that only does 10 damage for a single Fairy energy.
Sounds simple enough…Until we look at the Evolutionary Advantage ability that Flabebe has. This ability allows your Flabebe to evolve if you go second.
And in the Expanded format, that can happen pretty easy with the vast amount of search cards in the format. Now the question is why was Flabebe banned.
Fast forward to 2019 where a Floette was printed in Cosmic Eclipse. This Floette was one of the last Fairy type Pokemon to be printed with 70 HP. It had the Magical Shot attack that cost only two energy and did 30 damage. Though, it had the Flower Picking ability that allows you to choose a card at random from your opponent’s hand. It will then shuffle that card back into the opponent’s deck. All you had to do was evolve your Pokemon into Floette to activate the ability.
And now we have a problem.
With the right cards in your hand, you can take your opponent’s hand down to almost zero. The Expanded format has plenty of ways to limit your opponent’s hand size and Floette can pick away at the opponent’s hand to take down what was already a small hand size to almost nothing. All you need to do is have a Flabebe to evolve into Floette to Flower Pick the hand away to nothing. Tada! Now your opponent can’t play the game properly. Especially with all the other scary cards that could control what your opponent can draw into.
The solution? Simply ban Flabebe from the Expanded format. That way it won’t make Floette become a problematic card.
Meanwhile, Florges hasn’t caused too many issues during its time in the Pokemon TCG. There was a Florges EX card that came out during Phantom Forces. This Fairy type Pokemon had 160 HP. For a single Fairy Energy it can use the Lead attack to lead a Supporter card from your deck into your hand. Still, many players will play Florges EX for its Bright Garden attack. This attack does 20 damage times the number of Fairy and Grass type Pokemon you have on your Bench.

This Florges EX was used in a 2nd place European Challenge Cup by Emanuel de Silva. The deck he used with Florges EX was a Fairy Box deck that used various Fairy type Pokemon. This would help Florges EX do heavy damage to your opponent’s active Pokemon. There are other Pokemon to speak of from this deck but those will be talked about at a later time.

The fairy type will go on to give us nature deities, ancient heroes of the Britons, and food-based Pokémon that explore the concept of consuming the food of the fairy world. But here with the very first new Pokémon given the new typing, we get a classic.
Music for Luke Loves Pokemon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork for the show is by Katie Groves. If you enjoy the podcast, find out about my other shows at podcastiopodcastius.org, get in touch on bluesky @podcastpodcast, or support the show at patreon.com/podcastiopodcastius.
I love hearing from Listeners! Up next are Skiddo and pancham, so hit me up about those or any other Pokemon. Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much for listening.
I love Flabebe. And remember, I love you too