Category talk:Elemental creatures

Scope?

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Ever since I started on the wiki, these six categories have always struck me as overly confusing and impractical. To explain what I mean, when you present me a category like "Fire Creatures," I expect creatures like Blarggs, Wik, or Lava Bubbles (creatures essentially made of that element) rather than something like Behemoth or King Hisstocrat, which are creatures that merely use attacks with that element. I think it would be better to split these six categories for the sake of organization, separating creatures made of the element from those that use it. That said, I think the approach should be slightly different for "Poison Creatures," distinguishing between creatures associated with poison and those capable of inflicting it (e.g. Poison Blooper ≠ Sniffle Thwomp). Mr. Sorbetti (talk) 23:19, September 21, 2026 (UTC)

I heavily agree. As is, the application of these categories are overly broad, and attempt to include way too many subjects for very little reason. (Buzzar being classified as an "air creature" just because it flies and has an one attack where he attacks the player with wind?? How is that at all comparable to something like Fwoosh?) Wandering Poplin (talk) 01:14, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

I should add that there have been two proposals on pruning examples from these categories. Also, how "commonly" would a subject have to use an element for it for them to fall into an elemental creature category? Because currently, we have the regular, non-Fire Piranha Plant under Category:Fire creatures because "there are multiple games where regular piranha plants (sic) are able to breathe fire", but not non-Fire Mario for the same reason (albeit throwing and/or casting fire rather than breathing it)—probably even more frequently in his case? I get that he's a human and technically not a "creature", but that doesn't stop Dhalsim from being in Category:Fire creatures. Should it be tightened to an element usage being an instrinsic trait of the subject—which would exclude both regular Mario and Piranha Plant? How would we determine when that is the case? — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 01:42, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

I think this is straying a bit from the main topic, but it is another issue I’ve noticed. Perhaps "creature" could be changed to "being" to be more inclusive, but I don't know. What really interests me is how a unique trait, or one that only appears in a few games, influences a character's categorization. For instance, Pokey is currently in the "berries" category because it occasionally transforms into fruit in NSMBW and NSMBU, even though most of its other appearances don't depict it that way. I know this is an issue that needs resolving too, but let's take it one step at a time. First, I’d like to split and sort out the categories, and then we can analyze this better. Mr. Sorbetti (talk) 01:59, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not fond of such categorization either. There were discussions on potentially resolving it in Category talk:Pirates and Category talk:Police officers, but nothing ever came of them. One of my personal biggest irks with this phenomenon is Fruit (Yoshi food) being included in not only Category:Fruit, but also the subcategories Category:Apples, Category:Nuts, and Category:Berries because of the item's inconsistent naming in early games, when just having it in Category:Fruit would probably suffice. — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 02:10, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

I agree that such creatures are not fire creatures, but if necessary, a "fire-breathing creatures" category like the one you suggest could start as a subcategory and be decoupled at a later date. B700465189a9 (talk) 01:21, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

This gets dangerously close to Category:Characters who can Ground Pound or Category:Characters who can perform transmutation. Categories that are about having specific abilities are probably not good to have. Salmancer (talk) 01:54, September 22, 2026 (UTC)

Maybe wording such categories as "Category:[Element] users" might make them less of an issue? I don't know... — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 01:58, September 22, 2026 (UTC)