The way I look at it, trade evolutions fast track something that would've happened naturally over time. Steelix Dex entries mention that pressure and temperature deep underground triggered the evolution. Enough time passes with an Onix at that level underground, boom, Steelix. Metal Coat, once incorporated into the body of an Onix during a trade, is like a cheat code for that, giving you an early Steelix. I'm not entirely sure how this hypothesis applies to trade evolutions without items, but maybe it's similar to the way Nosepass and Magnetom evolved by being exposed to magnetic radiation. The particular process that is used to trade puts them in contact with energy that forces evolution.

if friendship can evolve a pokemon, then abandonment should too 🤗

when i was younger i just thought that trade evolutions are opposite of friendship evolution and due to being abandoned by their trainer they evolve

"Do you think Professors trade Pokemon woth different items to see if it would evolve?" Rowan: hello there

Technically Alolan Golem was the last trade evolution

I like to believe that Trading just causes some Energy to generate that causes Evolution. Wild Trade Pokémon just happened to find another source of that energy.

Canonically, pokemon evolve from trades due to the vast amount of energy passing through their bodies during the experience. That's why, on rare occasions, energy increases can cause certain pokemon to evolve.

It might be simular to how in real life, certain animals (typically the males) must leave the packs that they grew up in, inorder to reach maturity and find a mate. Trading pokemon and seperating them from their trainer might be simular enough to that process.

For the porygon one I think canon wise of how to explain it, is porygon is returning to the digital plain while traded, and the upgrade it has modifies it's code to update. While porygon Z is the same but with a malware causing it to bug out.

The only trade evo that makes sense is Karrablast and Shelmet

I think I can explain machamp the entire machamp line are devoted to learning martial arts and live in groups so it makes sense that the leaders swap groups to teach the other group their dojos martial art and evolve into machamp to distinguish themselves to make it easier to recognize teachers

Trading evolution is fine there's just one problem, I have no friends to help me 😭

legends arceus made the trade pokemon just good to transfer in that game to evolve the possible ones. it just require to give the item and they evolve after

I heard this once but a theory is that the fact they’re trainers gives them away makes them think they’re weaker and pushes them to become stronger, unlocking this new form/evolution

Palafin (I know it isn't trade but we need money and friends)

NO ONE EVER IS DISAPPOINTED WWITH POLITOED HE IS PERFECT! IF YOU DON'T LIKE HIM YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!

Maybe a good in-universe way of explaining it (assuming there isnt one already) could be that maybe the trade evo 'Mons evolve once they go through a dramatic change in enviroment or even change to their perspective?

Instructions unclear Guy from Facebook marketplace will not resell me back my computer to see if it evolved

The explanation: your Pokemon hates you so much that you need to give it to another person to make it evolve

The Poliwhurl situation actually happened with me. I was trading my polywhirl from my silver into my crystal in order to help me beat chunk, but he was holding the kings rock because it was a good item to hold because of flinch. Out of nowhere he popped up. I was so confused. I was also nine.

Palafin is the first true paid evolution. You quite literally need to buy a subscription to evolve him.

Luckily, there's the Linking Cord item.

“The Pokémon company wants us to have friends” nah they just want our money

I'm pretty sure in the manga Yellow got trade evolutions without trading, explained as her holding back their first evolution so long that when her Pokedex broke and she couldn't stop them they skipped right to the end evolution even without trade.

I always thought it was that when you trade a pokemon their physical form gets broken down and reassembled on the other side of the trade machine. Some Pokémon’s genetics are prone to mutation in this process so they come out the other side altered. Others when you send them through with an item like steel coat it gets broken up and merged with them altering their form.

"Trade evolutions are weird" Finizen: Nervous sweating

This is why legends Z-A BETTER have the link cable

I always thought that trade evis were lonely and needed more trainers to love them and trading them is fast tracking that

Yes, that's exactly how wild Rhyperior appeared

Alolan golem was the last trade evolution introduced

Head canon I have for trade item evolving is basically that one story where a guy gets fused with a fly cause of a teleporter

“Gourgeist was the last trade evolution” meanwhile Alolan Golem 🗿

I always thought of it as like, the mix of radiation from the trade machine

Everyone’s talking about the energy in trading being present in the wild. The other option I’ve thought of would be hormones from being abandoned being the cause of the evolution. So in the wild being excommunicated from their pack or by their mate could cause it.

Not a trade evolution, but Finizen only evolves in a union circle, so a mechanic requiring friends.

They realized we don’t have friends in Sun and moon and we never got a trade evo after X and Y, but we got a "union circle" evo for Palafin in scarlet and violet

I mean gourgeist may have been the last traditional trade evo, but its memory still lives on with palafin needing the goddamn union circle or whatever

You take that back about rhyperior!

Literally me in elementary school, trading Graveler to my friend and seeing it evolve into Golem. "Wait! Give that back!"

that one cave in mystery dungeon they go to for evolving

I'm now naming my Porygon "Facebook Marketplace"

I vaguely remember something about wild trade pokemon getting struck by lightning to evolve

In generation 1 Machamp and golem are both trade evolutions. The idea is that their DNA got mixed during the trade. This is why Machamp gains an extra set of arms while golem loses a set of arms.

Its a method that acts as a conditional mutation. Think of it as either merging a pokemon with something or acting like a spark in their genetics.

Well unless the Poliwhirl is holding a Kings Rock you'll still be able to evolve it into Poliwrath with a Water Stone.

Even though I mostly agree with this, I have to mention Escavalier (from Karrablast) and Accelgor (from Shelmet), the lore behind their evolution method (at least in the original version of the evolution) was really cool.

The first trade evolution was probably what we see in the Adventures Manga: Red and Blue accidentally confuse their poke balls for a moment, then they meet again and give back their original Pokemon. That's when their Pokemon that evolve by trading, actually evolved

With some trade evolutions, I always kind of imagined the Pokémon sort of fusing with the item during the process or gaining some of the items properties, like Scizor or Kingdra, with Scizor being entirely metal on the outside from the metal coat, and Kingdra gaining the dragon type from the Dragon Scale.

Now who in their right mind would be DISAPPOINTED to receive a Politoed, that’s just a happy accident

Thats why we need another way but a little bit harder to evolve for example kadabra to alakazam. Not deleting the trade evolve system, just adding other way to evolve this type of pokemon.

Porygon is the one that makes the most sense: It absorbs the upgrade as it's turned into data to go through the link cable.

Looks like a pokemon conquest animation of the alakazam

There was a wild Seadra who evolved into Kingdra in the anime Pokemon Journeys

I have always felt that Trade Evolution mimics some kind of natural radiation

When Pokémon are traded their friendship level resets to their base friendship. This can be interpreted as a Pokémon feeling resentful to their trainer for trading them away. This resentment generates energy in certain Pokémon like haunter, causing them to evolve

Alolan geodude: AM i a joke to you?

This always confuses me about trade. In the games it makes sense but when it comes to other media it’s way too complicated. In the anime, why gotta use a machine to trade Pokémon ?? Isn’t it simple to just hand the pokeball over to the other?

This video made me remember a certain NPC in Sinoh who wants to trade her Haunter. 😅😂

I think the reason there are trade evolutions in the wild is the Pokémon traded territory with another Pokémon, thus causing it to evolve.

Fun fact, that polytoad situation You described literally happens in the Pokémon adventures manga. Gold originally wanted a poliwrath like his hero red, but in an earlier chapter he traded it and then traded it back

"Imagine if the only way to update Windows was selling your PC on Facebook Marketplace" 💀

The only pokemon that should have been a trade evolution is Banette, its pokedex literally say its a pokemon that came into being from a grudge of being abanden

I feel like Palafin has the same spirit since you need buddies to eveolve

Can confirm as a kid trade evolutions did not somehow magically make me get more friends I do now have a friend I play pokemon with, though, ironically, now we've both gotta pay online to keep playing, so I guess I got more friends when the pokemon company stopped encouraging me to, lol

I personally think that its just a pokemon getting hit by a strong enough electrical current in a confined space that causes evolution

Porygon actually makes sense, since you pit it through a computer of sorts.

In Leafgreen I rememeber an NPC thay said that the reason some pokemon evolve via trade is because of the Link Cable, then it changed when everything became wireless.

Gamefreak did not learn that we don't have friends because palafin exists

i always saw it as a sort of electric stimulation that's given through the trading process that may or may not occur in nature under the right circumstances.

There was a plot point in pokespe where two characters had each other's teams for a while, and machoke evolved into machamp by experiencing a different training style. no trade machine required it's been almost two decades but iirc it was red and green (the rival, not the girl) who got lost in a cave or something with each other's pokemon

Trainer 1: *asks if someone can trade with his Haunter so it can evolve* Trainer 2: *Offers to trade with a Sunkern he just caught* *both trainers trade* *Haunter evolves into Gengar* Trainer 1: *wants his new Gangar back* Trainer 2: .... *books it with his new Gengar*

Pokemon that evolve by trade are evolving in response to exposure to interdimensional energy

Yes if scientists trade a pokemon around with items

I always figured that the energy used in trading jump started the evolution process. Trade evolutions exist in the wild but they're rare.

my personal theory is that in universe, in the process of registering ownership of the pokeball the unique energy signature of the trading machines causes a reaction in the pokemon

The Pokémon were adopted like pichu was

My theory is that trade evolutions only happen to spite the original trainer. The pokemon are like "if you don't want me, I'll become stronger and show you how wrong you were." Those found in the wild could be ones people released because they couldn't get them to evolve, and the same situation happened out of spite.

I always thought of the trade evolutions being ways that we’ve bypassed a unknown ritual pokemon do in the wild to evolve. Like I believe there are pokedex entries saying how Onix evolve into Steelix by burying themselves and waiting for pressure to transform them. So I always thought of trade evolutions is like the human way of speeding this process up.

Dont diss my many politoed drizzle lifeord stab waterpulse is nutty

Some Pokémon have lore reasons why they need to be traded with each other like Shelmet and karrablast

There's a few things explained in Black and White. Trade evos require a geoelectrical energy that trading happens to simulate. Many fossil pokemon weren't always rock type, they were affected by the revival process and the sediment they layed in. Stuff like that.

Hah! Ur so right though giving us games to play with our friends so that our parents can distract us so they don't have to teach us life skills such as making friends and now look 😅

The trading process exposes the Pokémon to an exceptional amout of energy that they could not or rarely encounter otherwise. This energy can sometimes super charge Pokémon pushing them into new forms rarely seen in the wild except for the strongest of the species.

I never caught that episode when Misty's Poliwhirl evolved into a Politoed. So, here I am wondering where Poliwhirl went. It's drastically different from a poliwhirl, lol.

my thought is if a pokemon in a group and it moves to another group it would evolve in the wild

It’s funny cause I have friends who have the other versions and trade evolutions don’t feel fun. It’s more of a chore like “Okay now let me trade you these Pokémon and you have to trade them back to me”

Using entries for karrablast and shelmet, it seems that trade evolutions can happen naturally when certain energy envelops the pokémon, so during a trade whatever this energy is is recreated as a happy side effect, and the linking cord from legends arceus also either emits/contains this energy.

My sister and I got Violet and Scarlet, respectively, specifically so that we can get the trade evolutions and the version exclusives from each other. I like to believe that our respective playthroughs were parallel universes to each other. From the gender of our respective character to kind of Paradox Pokemon encountered - I think we even went in opposite directions from the city to start the adventure - the two universes acted as mirrors to each other. The first trade evolution we got was Haunter -> Gengar. Going by the headcanon, my sister’s Haunter was exposed to some eldritch energy that exists in the void between universes, perhaps the leftover chaos whereupon Almighty Arceus first created existence. When reality stabilized around the Haunter upon arrival in my “universe,” it utilized this energy to force its evolution into Gengar. At least, that’s my headcanon. Each pair of games being parallel universes to each other.

The only phrase that comes to my mind when hearing trade evolutions: FuckMindy.

So introverts with no friend will buy more consoles and cartridges 🤡

The other thing is if someone wants a trade pokemon and have the previous stage they have to trade and then trade back and hope the other trainer doesn't keep it

I like in Legends Arceus that they put in an item that substitutes for the trade.

I really wish SV kept the way trade evolution items worked in PLA, where you could just use them as if they were something along Tiger lines of a fire stone

I've always seen it as glitching in the trade system. Machoke gives Graveler his face, Graveler gives Machoke the extra arms. Karrablast and Shelmet do the same thing when evolving to Escavalier and Accelgor, but by Gen 5, the hardware was advanced enough to allow GF to code in the requirement of that specific pair. The "trade item" evos are likely freak mutstions from the item fusing into the pokemon inside the trade machine. And Porygon's line are just absorbing the update patches on the discs

I saw the wild trade Pokémon as trading locations/places to call home, but that’s just me I think.😅

Probably my favorite trade evo is Karrablast and Shellmet. Karrablast literally steals the shell of Shellmet to make them both evolve

I imagine its meant to mean they need a new experience. Wild ones just encountered different enemies, challenges, and allies that gave them the same different experiences a different trainer would bring.

The theory I like is that in nature trade evos are a form of life stage evolution for those species. Where say a machoke proves itself by beating it's rival and thus evolves into machamp. Or something similar, trading evokes the same sensation that brings about the evolution by having the pokemon separate from its found family.

its not about having friends, its about buying the two versions of the same gen

well now for gen 9 you need a friend in order to get palafin