Now I love Pokémon, and I love character design so I put them together and got this! While this may seem like a random start to this series but who cares about that.
So throughout the whole of Pokémon there had been a total of seven notable trainers that specialize in Poison types. Three are Gym Leaders, two belong to evil teams, and two belong to miscellaneous categories.
(Yes I know that Klara is technically a Gym Leader, but we never fight her as one so she doesn't count)
So one trend that immediately jumps out is ninja's, with Koga, Janine, and Atticus. There is historical evidence that ninja's did use poison as a weapon, specifically cyanide found in almonds. Weapons such as darts, arrows, and swords being dipped in the toxin as a way to kill or incapacitate their target.
The connection may also come from Poison types being used by evil teams early on, such as Rocket, Magma, Or Aqua. Ninja were historically assassins' which is kind of evil depending on who you ask.
And now we can loop back around with the evil connection to having two notable specialists being evil team admins (Plumeria and Atticus). This has less of a real life connection to poison and likely just goes back to Poison being mostly relegated to evil teams in the beginning.
Now Klara likely has the connection to Poison types due to her personality. Laziness, willingness to cheat, and lying are all usually considered to be discouraged behavior in a lot of cultures. Someone who exhibits these traits may be considered toxic.
Now Melli has similar connections to the Poison type as Klara, personality. Being cocky and self centered are considered negative traits which could also be considered toxic. The typing might also give him connections to Jupiter of Team Galactic with using similar Pokémon.
Roxie has the least amount of connections to poison at a glance but there's honestly a lot if you know what to look for. Roxie is a rock singer and rock music is considered evil or devilish to some people. This may seem more indicative of the dark type, but she got Poison instead.
Also where her gym is located may be a factor. You battle her in a basement hat she appears to hold concerts in and while the basement itself looks remarkably clean, there could also be traces of dirt in there making it unclean. Concerts that also be a place to exchange illicit drugs.
Whoo, now we got the individual trainers out of the way and can focus on larger scale trends.
PURPLE!. Oh boy do Poison trainers love their purple. This can be traced back to roots of purple being heavily used in colour palettes of villains, but also some naturally occurring substances are coloured purple. Deadly nightshade, wolfsbane, and some species of poison dart frogs use purple as a way to ward off predators.
Bright colours are also used in these designs like yellow, cyan, and pink. Again some species of animal have bright colours or markings to symbolize that they are toxic and not to eat them.
And there we have it. Are there more trends and connections to make? Yes, yes there are. Will I cover them in this posts? No, no I wont.
If you have anymore connections and trends you want to discuss, then I fully welcome you to do it! I'm usually happy to talk. Also you can absolutely request any ideas you want me to do in this series.