Headscratchers / Pikmin 2

• I have concerns about Louie's grandma/auntie. Did she mistreat Louie or something? It's said that she always made Louie play outside with bugs when he was little, making me assume she didn't actually spend time with him herself. There's also the fact that she always made Louie finish everything on his plate, even if he was too full, making him the Big Eater he is today. Eventually all you get is letters from Louie's grandma/auntie sending preserved bug foods. Not preserved bugs. Bug food. Did she even feed him real food she made him finish eating? Sure, it sounds funny, but still, it makes me wonder...
  • Maybe it's actually cooked bugs.
  • It's not necessarily "mistreating" him. Making him play outside could just be her getting him to play outside so he could get exercise and fresh air, and making him clean his plate goes along with the old idea of parents not wanting their kids to waste food. As for the "bug food"... it could be that he just likes eating it, and she's sending it because he likes it.
• In the ending, what happened to the Purple and White Pikmin? Their only home up to this point was the ship, but it had taken off to Hocotate. And, seeing as the Distant Planet's atmosphere is deadly to Olimar, Hocotate's atmosphere might be deadly to the Pikmin unless they — or at least the cave-grown types — have some unstated resistance to it. What really raises the question is the "first" ending when you only pay off the debt and do not get all the treasures: the ship returns to Hocotate, goes back to the planet, but the Purples and Whites are still inside the ship. Does this mean that for both endings, Olimar brought two types of Pikmin to his homeworld twice?
  • If you watch the 17/5/2013 footage for Pikmin 3, what looks like a new type of Onion is hanging from a plant, the player has to grab it with the Pikmin, they can store multiple types of Pikmin at once, rather then just one type.. Whether these Onions evolved from the ones in previous games or are a completely new type of Onion isn't known but I suspect they adapt themselves to whatever Pikmin type gets inside it. Thus, White and Purple Pikmin likely were able to hole up inside these new Onions. Since Blue, Red and Yellow Onions aren't able/willing to store Purple and White Pikmin the only alternative is that they were eaten. The new Onion type is literally the only way to store these types of Pikmin.
  • Also, at one point you can see Grey Pellets being carried by Rock Pikmin, meaning they really were being eaten by the Medusal Slurker. It's likely that these new Onions generate a number of Pikmin based on the colour of the Pellet instead of whichever Onion the pellet enters. The real question then is "what happens if they carry a dead enemy back to the Onion?"
• Why is Olimar so willing to return to the Pikmin homeworld? He went through all of the first game horrified by the deaths he was causing by being there. Sure, he kept at it for the sake of survival, but it doesn't make much sense for him to actively go back there and cause even more death, all for the sake of his company. Surely an experienced space pilot of Olimar's resolve and intelligence could find another job? And even if he is so determined to keep Hocotate Freight afloat, why doesn't he show any signs of sadness or regret over what he continues to do to the planet's creatures in any of Pikmin 2?
  • Olimar might have actually wanted to help President. Remember the black hole loan sharks?
  • Olimar's ship got repossessed to help pay off the debt. He could be going back just so he can make enough money to buy his ship back. That's even his motivation for being on the planet again in Pikmin 3.
• Why do enemies give Pokos, if not just for something that happens when you take them to the ship? If the Hocotatians would pay 15 Pokos for an Emperor Bulblax to put in their living room, they've got problems.
  • One can sell them for food. With Louie's recipes, they could be edible.
  • There's also the possiblity that scientist/biologiest would want to study these strange creatures from a realitively new planet never heard of before. Olimar does mention in a few of his notes on the creatures in Pikmin 2 that several scientist have been studying and dissecting the creatures on the planet.
• Why is the treasure "The Key" so light? Even if it's hollow and made of plastic, a treasure about the size of a 10 Pellet should at least take more then one Pikmin to carry.
  • It was made incredibly light so that it would be at least possible to complete the challenge stages (where the goal is to collect the key to get the hole to the next level or geyser to complete it) even if you're down to a single Pikmin. As for an in-universe reason... The Key is a strange object that can somehow interacts with other dimensions and it resembles the keys from Super Mario World that unlock alternate exits. So it's possible it might not even be "real" in a sense.
• You know that snowman that you see when you get to the latter portion of the Valley of Repose? The one you have to get passed a bunch of enemies to get to? Yeah, who made that?
  • Well, Pikmin 2 was created before the developers decided to go with the Humanity's Wake trope for the setting, so it's likely it was intended to have been made by the humans who were still around at that point. As for the similar structure in Pikmin 3, could be a case of their being new intelligent life on the planet of some sorts. What they are, and how big they are, is something that may never be explained.
  • Could just be humans. Most likely evolution has made "humans" into something we no longer recognize but sizable amounts of human culture has remained intact anyway.