Interpreting the Lore of the Digimon Reference Book

[Bancho]

A Beast Digimon with the alias "Soaring Lion". It guards a certain ruins site located in the Digital World, and is also a caring leader-figure.

I've always been curious what the "certain ruins" is referring to. Is there other Digimon lore that point to what these ruins could be interpreted as or is there maybe a reference to the real world that I'm missing?

 

[Rohan]

A Beast Digimon with the alias "Soaring Lion". It guards a certain ruins site located in the Digital World, and is also a caring leader-figure.

I've always been curious what the "certain ruins" is referring to. Is there other Digimon lore that point to what these ruins could be interpreted as or is there maybe a reference to the real world that I'm missing?

As a random guess, maybe the IRL ruined Temple of Apollo?

 

[e105zeta]

I vary on if

A Beast Digimon with the alias "Soaring Lion". It guards a certain ruins site located in the Digital World, and is also a caring leader-figure.

I've always been curious what the "certain ruins" is referring to. Is there other Digimon lore that point to what these ruins could be interpreted as or is there maybe a reference to the real world that I'm missing?

they retconned the Folder virus busters base into underground ruins in Pendulum Z. Perhaps this was decided internally years earlier and only recent incorporated into public material?

 

[SuperStarlite]

A Beast Digimon with the alias "Soaring Lion". It guards a certain ruins site located in the Digital World, and is also a caring leader-figure.

I've always been curious what the "certain ruins" is referring to. Is there other Digimon lore that point to what these ruins could be interpreted as or is there maybe a reference to the real world that I'm missing?

I assumed it's a reference to various middle eastern religious sites that feature winged lions in their design.

 

[Charin]

A Beast Digimon with the alias "Soaring Lion". It guards a certain ruins site located in the Digital World, and is also a caring leader-figure.

I've always been curious what the "certain ruins" is referring to. Is there other Digimon lore that point to what these ruins could be interpreted as or is there maybe a reference to the real world that I'm missing?

I wonder if it's a reference to the Terrace of the Lions on the island of Delos in Greece. Delos is the mythological birthplace of Apollo, and the lion statues were reportedly placed there millennia ago in his honour. There are bunch of ruins at/near the site, from what I understand.

 

[Bancho]

all of these sound like valid explanations. It makes me wish that the reference book didn't just assume I knew which of the real world ruins it's referring to since now if I go "it's totally the Terrace of Lions" it feels like a headcanon when we have other viable locations out there

 

[Darklabo]

So, if Agnimon is always an Adult, how does that square with him being either weaker than a Child or stronger than a Perfect? It’s obvious that power can’t be quantified. In one of the art books this was demonstrated by showing a series of matchups and stating which Digimon would win. The first Digimon listed would beat the second, the second would beat the third, and so on. But the last (who, if power was a static number, should have been the weakest of all) would beat the first (who, if power was a static number, should be the strongest of all).

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

But power still be quantified, Charizard is still stronger than Squirtle despite being weak against water.
I mean, even if Charizard would lost, that wouldn’t change the fact that in term of raw power, he’s stronger.

 

[Bancho]

I think settings and contexts are important when writing Digimon battles. For example, the researchers for the Reference Book added Shroudmon this year and state that Shroudmon's "Garaien Saiha" outright "boasts the single greatest firepower generated by a Digimon" which is a stated feat. But if I were to imagine a situation where I go against Shroudmon with say, a Marine Angemon, then Marine Angemon could probably capitalize on its puny size and sneak up on Shroudmon, using Ocean Love to pacify it and score a win that way.

Squirtle might lose to Charizard in the games but in Pokemon anime, manga, and other stories we've seen Pokemon win and lose against disadvantageous evolution levels and typings all the time. Ash's Pikachu electrocuted the ground type Rhydon, took on legendaries, and then afterwards proceeded to lose to a Snivy having its first battle

edit: it's like 5 am and I haven't slept I think I didn't really contribute to the conversation with this but I already typed something out and pressed send before going back and rereading what others wrote so whoops

 

[Ragnalord]

You guys are forgetting that digimon and pokemon have this thing called training and stats.

 

[DaisukeDoi7]

What I've always thought about the lore in the reference book descriptions was sort of like a Pokedex entry, where the explanation for the Digimon was more of a general thing that species does, as they are still meant to be "animals" in a way, even the humanoid Digimon. For example, Veemon's entry states that it has a prank-loving personality, but that doesn't mean there cannot be Veemon who don't like to make pranks, that's just something most Veemon like in general.

For examples of reference entries talking about how strong a specific Digimon is, I've always taken it as "this was based on a specific notable iteration of the species" because Digimon has known there can be multiple of a specific Digimon. Reference entries should be used as a sort of brief explanation of what that monster can do, or what the species does, rather than "this is the end all be all.

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

In this type of situation, while different Digimon may have different power levels that can prove an "Oh, a higher leveled Digimon will beat something like a rookie", but I never really saw that as "A rookie-level monster will (or must) lose against an ultimate level." Every specific member of a Digimon species can be drastically different from each other. Even the anime has shown examples like with Shoutmon being able to take out Digimon at levels way higher than him.

 

[SuperStarlite]

What I've always thought about the lore in the reference book descriptions was sort of like a Pokedex entry, where the explanation for the Digimon was more of a general thing that species does, as they are still meant to be "animals" in a way, even the humanoid Digimon. For example, Veemon's entry states that it has a prank-loving personality, but that doesn't mean there cannot be Veemon who don't like to make pranks, that's just something most Veemon like in general.

For examples of reference entries talking about how strong a specific Digimon is, I've always taken it as "this was based on a specific notable iteration of the species" because Digimon has known there can be multiple of a specific Digimon. Reference entries should be used as a sort of brief explanation of what that monster can do, or what the species does, rather than "this is the end all be all.

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

In this type of situation, while different Digimon may have different power levels that can prove an "Oh, a higher leveled Digimon will beat something like a rookie", but I never really saw that as "A rookie-level monster will (or must) lose against an ultimate level." Every specific member of a Digimon species can be drastically different from each other. Even the anime has shown examples like with Shoutmon being able to take out Digimon at levels way higher than him.

Xros Wars had a general complete disregard for levels in general.

 

[Ragnalord]

The digimon ref book is only a small fraction of digimon, basically an introduction, if you have played video games and read manga, a digimon can have different personality, different type of backgrounds, good example I will use from adventure 2020, devimon doing experiments, Cresgarurumon and zanbamon war so on. If they were just like ref book tells them to be, that would make them boring for e.g. omegamon alter B and omegamon zwart d,mespecially Rafflesimon and chaosmon.

If you only care about ref book and ignore media, you overlooking big part of digimon, every time a new media releases, new lores get add on to existing digimon, most notably the Seven Great Demon Lords and royal knights, they tend to get expansions every now and then, for example rearise has added in quite a bit to royal knights, gave us more insight on lucemons background so on, the biggest example is digimon special moves, not everything is in ref books and also Zeedgarurumon and Victorygreymon profiles don't state them being arbitrators and their connection with Yggdrasil, you would need to read digimon next for that.

 

[Muur]

That's because the lore ones aren't arbitrators. Like how the lore gaiomon and kuzuhamon aren't known as the gods of destruction, that's just the ones from next order. Those are just roles one played. Victory and zeed aren't anything special as species they have no connection to Yggdrasil what so ever.

 

[Ragnalord]

That is interesting way to look at it, I need more explanation of course to understand.

 

[Sparrow Hawk]

What I've always thought about the lore in the reference book descriptions was sort of like a Pokedex entry, where the explanation for the Digimon was more of a general thing that species does, as they are still meant to be "animals" in a way, even the humanoid Digimon. For example, Veemon's entry states that it has a prank-loving personality, but that doesn't mean there cannot be Veemon who don't like to make pranks, that's just something most Veemon like in general.

For examples of reference entries talking about how strong a specific Digimon is, I've always taken it as "this was based on a specific notable iteration of the species" because Digimon has known there can be multiple of a specific Digimon. Reference entries should be used as a sort of brief explanation of what that monster can do, or what the species does, rather than "this is the end all be all.

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

In this type of situation, while different Digimon may have different power levels that can prove an "Oh, a higher leveled Digimon will beat something like a rookie", but I never really saw that as "A rookie-level monster will (or must) lose against an ultimate level." Every specific member of a Digimon species can be drastically different from each other. Even the anime has shown examples like with Shoutmon being able to take out Digimon at levels way higher than him.

Why post about Xros? Xros is the worst example that ignored the power levels.

Well Reference book may be the "Pokedex" but honestly unlike Pokedex who make "folklore" stories around the pokemon species while this Reference books have info of their existences, Level, Type, Attribute and their own battle techniques.

Yes it only kept gloats so proudly about their powers like in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure where villains believes their Stands are invincible to gloat lol

 

[Chimera-gui]

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

In this type of situation, while different Digimon may have different power levels that can prove an "Oh, a higher leveled Digimon will beat something like a rookie", but I never really saw that as "A rookie-level monster will (or must) lose against an ultimate level." Every specific member of a Digimon species can be drastically different from each other. Even the anime has shown examples like with Shoutmon being able to take out Digimon at levels way higher than him.

Why post about Xros? Xros is the worst example that ignored the power levels.

Strictly speaking, just treating Digivolutionary stages as 'power levels' is itself flat out wrong since as Tortoiseshel noted a year ago, they're technically not:

You know all this hand-wringing about "tiers" and matchups or whatever could be easily avoided, I think, if we acknowledged that Digimon evolutionary levels are more like life stages than Dragon Ball Z power levels.

There is a relation between power and life stage but they're not completely 1:1.

 

[e105zeta]

All of those Digimon are on the same level, it’s a Pokemon type situation where a Digimon should beat another not because he’s stronger but because he has a type advantage against it.

In this type of situation, while different Digimon may have different power levels that can prove an "Oh, a higher leveled Digimon will beat something like a rookie", but I never really saw that as "A rookie-level monster will (or must) lose against an ultimate level." Every specific member of a Digimon species can be drastically different from each other. Even the anime has shown examples like with Shoutmon being able to take out Digimon at levels way higher than him.

Why post about Xros? Xros is the worst example that ignored the power levels.

Strictly speaking, just treating Digivolutionary stages as 'power levels' is itself flat out wrong since as Tortoiseshel noted a year ago, they're technically not:

You know all this hand-wringing about "tiers" and matchups or whatever could be easily avoided, I think, if we acknowledged that Digimon evolutionary levels are more like life stages than Dragon Ball Z power levels.

There is a relation between power and life stage but they're not completely 1:1.

I think of it as split difference: Baby 1 to Adult are life stages. Perfect and Ultimate are more power level-y. If you go by win % in the tcg only 40 percent of Adults become Perfect and only 20 Percent of Perfects become Ultimates. That feels more dbz than Tamagotchi.

 

[Tortoiseshel]

That would seem to match up with how they were originally portrayed in the Digital Monster, and would make sense with how they're named. As long as they don't die of injury, sickness, or starvation, every Digimon would over time reach Adulthood, indicating that it's the "natural lifespan" of a Digimon. Most Adults would then eventually die of old age, while the ones who put in a lot of effort and training could evolve further. It's also evident in the designs of a lot of early Digimon, come to think of it; Baby I to Adult Digimon designs were very naturalistic, and any metal parts were usually in the form of armor. Perfect Digimon on the other hand tended to be cyborgs, machines, or otherwise "unnatural" monsters, indicating that those forms were attained through largely artificial means, and "unnatural" extension of a Digimon's lifespan. Piccolomon's kinda the odd one out here, but uh... maybe it used magic instead of technology? I don't know

It's a little detail/design convention that was pretty quickly abandoned and now we have lots of robotic/mechanized Digimon of every level. And while I do like the diversity of designs that a less "structured" aesthetic allows for, it was a real neat little bit of subtle visual worldbuilding that part of me misses. A lot of Pendulum Z designs, save for Metal Empire (obviously) and Virus Busters, felt like a brief return to that style, which I very much appreciated.

 

[Chimera-gui]

Yeah, I can see Levels I - IV being the natural lifespan of most Digimon with only the strongest being able to go further than that.

Even before Xros Wars Digimon were given Levels, Tactimon mentions that he's lived for centuries since that was how long it took him reach his current form, bare in mind that his species was established as Level VI in the Field Guide/Reference Book last year which gives the aforementioned line some interesting implications.

 

[SuperStarlite]

Yeah, I can see Levels I - IV being the natural lifespan of most Digimon with only the strongest being able to go further than that.

Even before Xros Wars Digimon were given Levels, Tactimon mentions that he's lived for centuries since that was how long it took him reach his current form, bare in mind that his species was established as Level VI in the Field Guide/Reference Book last year which gives the aforementioned line some interesting implications.

When I work on my own stories(all of which never see the light of day...) I usually go with an idea like that. Baby I to Adult are considered part of a digimon's normal lifestyle, and Perfect can be achieved through active improvement, but Ultimate levels are singular beings which only exist from special circumstances.