Why is Gyarados part Flying-type?

[Sweet Serenity]

I never understood why Gyarados is part Flying-type. It is a serpentine dragon without wings, meaning it can't fly. Gyarados can't even learn Fly in the games and I don't ever recall seeing Gyarados flying in the anime. If it has, I sure missed it. Gyarados can't learn any worthwhile Flying-type attacks. Its strongest Flying-type attack it can learn is Hurricane, but Gyarados is not a special attacker. Bounce is probably its best STAB Flying-type move, but not only is it a two-turn attack that is vulnerable to any protection move and/or gives the opponent a free switch, but it is also very inaccurate. Why Flying-type?

 

[icycatelf]

I can only guess that GAME FREAK did it for balance reasons since Dragon clearly fits better (IIRC, some of Magikarp's entries even mention its dormant dragon DNA). To the shock of many though, it actually does fly around the sky in Legends: Arceus! I've also read that its Flying-type may reference windsocks, which are sometimes modeled after fish or dragons.

 

[Devalue]

Assumes balance as well. Already considers Gyarados amazing with an underwhelming Water/Flying type. What happens when it becomes Water/Dragon? Potentially overshadows other wild Pokemon too much.

Believes Dragon type rarity to be a possible factor too. Clearly wanted to make it special with all those resistances.

 

[Palamon]

Probably because Dragons were supposed to be rare, so they didn't want to give it the Dragon type. But, I still don't get why its mega was Water/Dark very weird. I can only assume it's Flying because of the legend of leaping over a Waterfall.

 

[Corveone]

Gameplay nerf it seems. Same reason why Koraidon isn't Fire type (?)

Water/Dragon = Broken typing with zero weaknesses in Gen 1.
The whole point of Dragons is that they were supposed to be super strong, but also extremely rare, hard to find and raise. Magikarp is one of the easiest Pokémon to obtain ever, and evolves at level 20.

A 540 BST Pokémon with no weaknesses that you can have at level 20. Even worse, a 580 BST Pokémon in Gen 1, because its base Sp. Attack was 100 before Gen 2's split. It would have easily overshadowed Dragonite in every way, which was meant to be 'the Dragon final boss', the strongest non-legendary Pokémon, and therefore the one that took the longest to reach its final stage.

They could have made Magikarp rarer and stronger, and/or give Gyarados more humble stats but make it Water/Dragon, but that would have been against the point of this line, which was basically 'useless and common fish that nobody wants evolves into extremely powerful creature'. The idea seemed like teaching players a lesson about not underestimating "garbage" Pokémon.

So there seemed to be a conflict of interests between the Magikarp line's concept, the role and purpose of Dragons, and gameplay balance. It would have been unreasonably strong from a gameplay point of view, so they made it Flying (a type that was completely useless offensively for it) basically just to give it a 4x weakness, and it was easy enough to justify lore-wise, as opposed to making it part Electric, Ground, or something else.

 

[Soaring Sid]

I never understood why Gyarados is part Flying-type.

I don't understand why so many pokémon are of a certain type sometimes
Like
Why are some ground types not water types
(Looking at Stunfisk, Krookodile and Hippowdon)

Also wow Corveone's points make sense.
From a Gen 1 perspective Gyarados being a water/dragon would've been busted.

 

[Hashimi]

No idea either. I've always thought of Gyarados as a pure water type Pokémon since it is basically a sea monster.
I wouldn't mind it to be changed to a water and dark type combination, instead, just as its mega evolved form suggests. As for someone who should be changed to a water and dragon type combination, I'd go with Milotic, since it looks much more dragon-like than Gyarados in my opinion.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

No idea either. I've always thought of Gyarados as a pure water type Pokémon since it is basically a sea monster.
I wouldn't mind it to be changed to a water and dark type combination, instead, just as its mega evolved form suggests. As for someone who should be changed to a water and dragon type combination, I'd go with Milotic, since it looks much more dragon-like than Gyarados in my opinion.

It does? Milotic definitely looks more like an oarfish to me rather than a dragon. Gyarados definitely resembles a Chinese dragon to me. Nonetheless, it's just weird how they picked Flying of all types when it could have just been a pure Water-type like you said.

 

[Hashimi]

It does? Milotic definitely looks more like an oarfish to me rather than a dragon. Gyarados definitely resembles a Chinese dragon to me. Nonetheless, it's just weird how they picked Flying of all types when it could have just been a pure Water-type like you said.

Yes, it does. A very dragon-like version of an oarfish.

To help that it even has a big dragon type movepool, a dragon type ability in marvel scale (only shared with Dratini, who even has a similar body structure), an evolution method which requires a scale based item (just like Seadra) and a compatibility in breeding with dragons.
I'd rather have Gyarados as part dark type over flying or dragon, mostly because of that rageous - not sleek at all - factor by which is surrounded. Drampa strikes - at least to me - as a better portrait of a chinese dragon than Gyarados.

 

[Megan]

In gen 1 there only was one Dragon Type move in Dragon Rage. Since that move dealt fixed damage there was no way to deal super effective damage to a Water/Dragon Pokemon. Also, Gyarados had really good stats; especially with Special being a single stat. That meant that both its Special Attack and Special Defense where base 100.