I kinda want to bring this up, like it's been something I've wondered about for a long while and playing
Pokémon Puzzle Challenge has helped me draw to a conclusion Jynx' design is entirely misunderstood and that true art
is incomprehensible.
So in the tragic case of Jynx, I think the species was always meant to be some kind of otherworldly being, as in the only tangible part of the body is her hair. I mean, just look at the slap animation in Stadium:
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The hair is more like a wig than something actually coming out of her head. The hands could be her actual hands or they could be like gauntlets (much like arms) since the color's not the same as what's in the void, but they got recolored to purple suggesting that
is Jynx' natural skin color. It's weird, too, as early sprites and artwork show that it's
possible Jynx' arms are purposefully hidden in the hair, showing detachment.
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It's also worth noting that the games canonically show she has no footprint despite an episode of the anime showing her with feet (although it's pretty much a filler episode).
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Then there's the fainting animations:
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A few years ago, Chuggaaconroy made a remark about this in the TheRunawayGuys' collab of
Pokémon Snap in that although he didn't name the source he got the word from, it suddenly makes sense why it is Jynx looks "black". (Timestamped.)
EDIT: Also, you can see that the eyes and lips are not attached to anything.
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It's really just a void where only eyes and lips can be seen. Even the rest of the body appears to be some kind of armor to protect whatever is in the void. So why does Jynx only leave behind the wig upon fainting? Where does she go where we can't follow?
Unfortunately for Game Freak, that intention wasn't fully utilized thanks to sprite limitations nor did they give any hints in the PokéDex and such that that's not Jynx' actual face, all that was focused on was that she communicates through seductive dance and a language that is
almost human. It's possible the hair being more-or-less a wig was something they came up with later on to try and stave off accusations of blackface, but it was too late and it was never shown to be such in the anime.
I still think the woman who wrote the article accusing Jynx to be racist jumped the gun for taking it at face-value, but I guess to be fair, no one really understood
what Jynx even was supposed to be. Game Freak not telling anyone of her origins in the design department to leave it up for mass speculation didn't help.
Really is too bad that whatever they were going for with Jynx has been thrown out the window. Could've been a neat little mystery for fans to speculate on like with Tangela in wondering what it looks like under all those vines.
