Why can't Garchomp learn fly?

Question

"It flies at speeds equal to a jet fighter plane. It never allows its prey to escape."
Do I need to say anything else?

(I do not want to see "That's the way Game Freak wanted it")

Comments

Looking at the dex Entries, and the Pokémon Cards, the only valid explanation I can see is: it's a bug; Game Freak forgot something; Game Freak are inconsistent. In short, it's an error.

Answer 1

Well, there is no absolute answer (except for the taboo "because GameFreak wanted it that way") but here is my theory.

Garchomp's deisgn looks aerodynamic, but it has no way of flying high into the air, which is required to use Fly. I think that the pokedex entries simply means it can move very fast, maybe even just off the ground, but it can't get the lift required for true flight.

Also, notice that it does get Aerial Ace (a lot of non-Flying Pokemon do, though). Aerial Ace is different as (I imagine) it can be performed by a Pokemon that can jump well.

Comments

Thanks Meloetta!

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I think GameFreak wanted to exclude Pokemon from learning the move fly, without acctually being a flying type. Of course yot have exceptions in the form of bug/flying types and some Pokemon with levitate (flygon). I understand your confusion, becouse I think it is really cool to fly on a Garchomp (like in the anime), but I can't becouse of the reasons above

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Pokemon Sun dex description    "It can fly at speeds rivaling jet planes. It dives into flocks of bird Pokémon and gulps the entire flock down whole."
Pokemon Ultra Sun dex description   "It flies at the speed of sound while searching for prey, and it has midair battles with Salamence as the two compete for food."    
Myth busted.

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That's just what the SM Pokédex says. Busted? Maybe. Debunked? Not even close.

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Well it does say "flies at the same speed as a jet plane" so that means that it can fly

Answer 2

It's likely because Garchomp has that ground typing. Let's look at our ground types that can learn fly.

1. Golurk
2. Vibrava
3. Flygon
4. Arceus-Ground
5. Landorus/Landorus Therian forme.

Now let's look at the features.

Golurk is a machine type Pokemon. It's literally called the "Automaton" Pokemon. In the SM anime, Hapu flies around on her golurk. This is likely why it can fly.

Vibrava and Flygon are fairly self-explanatory, since they both literally have wings.

Arceus-ground is literally the god of Pokemon :P

Landorus and Therian Landorus both have that flying type on them, so of course they can fly.

The only thing that gets me, is Gliscor. It can't learn fly. This might just be because of the fact that its name is GLISCOR. Glide Scorpion. It glides, not flies.

Garchomp seems like it'd glide too. The wings are probably not strong enough to allow it to fly easily. In SM Ultra legends though, it flies easily with ash on it's back, so that confuses me a lot.

Garchomp must be able to fly for a short period of time if it tries, but likely not use fly, since that takes the Pokemon extremely high up. What do you guys think?