The Vicious Cycle of The Onion. | Pikmin 4 Theory 

Well, they are both in the candypop family...

Well, candypop buds are believed to yield onions when mature, but what if it was like bees? If they fail to get polinized, they become a flarlic. If they succeed its an onion!

I personally think they're immature onions or ones that lost all their pikmin or too many and couldn't get enough nutrients from pellets and beasts being brought to them by the pikmin rather than a very old onion being worn out by time

the fact that it more resembles a plant that's still growing rather than a plant that's dying makes me think it might be an onion that "missed it's chance" so to speak for whatever reason it just never managed to spit out a pikmin and so it's like a plant bulb with nothing to bring it energy in excess to fully develop a stunted onion of sorts

I've always held the idea that pikmin, candypop buds and onions are all the same lifeform just in different stages of maturity. Onions produce pikmin to gather nutrients to produce even more pikmin > pikmin that get left in the ground for an extended duration eventually grow into candypop buds> candypop buds use pikmin of other onions to cross pollinate> the candy pop bud withdraws it's flower and produces an onion that will eventually uproot itself to continue the process. Farlics may just be the middle ground between candypop buds and onions, they're not strong enough to start producing pikmin on their own but they can still support newly developed onions with their ability to increase the cap

I doubt its a dead onion, but its a great theory! It feels more possible for them to be immature onions, or misformed onions. Like, when a onion is made (via the candypop bud route) it turns into a flarlic. The flarlic then spends a long time learning the pikmin theyre making, by creating pikmin inside and recreating the same one to perfect the pikmin. Its an odd idea, but it feels more right to me. Awesome theory though!

flarlic could be a pre mature onion, because you also find the red onion buried implying that it grew there

I always saw them as Onions that are too young, but them being instead Onions that are too old also make sense. With your theory, the Flarlic inside of the cave where you discover Ice Pikmin could be the old Onion of those Ice Pikmin. I also wonder how is that the Pikmin end up being wiped out back to being just 5 of their types after reproducing to the hundreds or thousands. We have only actually seen that happened in 2 and in 3, where in 3 even the Winged and Blue Pikmin might as well be completely extinct, so I wonder what happened. Plus, in Pikmin 3's case, thanks to the existence of Olimar's Assignment, either several Onions of each color existed at the same time, or the Onion got split somehow with all Blue and Winged perishing. It most likely is the former though, because Olimar's Assigment happens at the same time of the main adventure, and I don't think that the same Onion was traveling back and forth between Olimar and the Koppaites.

To me the part that sticks out reminds me of when an allium bulb begins to sprout. I think its why the "fruit" of the farlic is pale, but the top is greenish, it's using itself to germinate new life and is serving a different function than the regular onion, but I definitely agree, I think they are different states of the same thing

They don't look dead though. They're still moving, and they even have the appearance of a bulb or garlic just starting to grow, with the green tint at the top.

They are very clearly related, but the piklopedia says that its not an onion. They likely do come to exist from the same source as onions, but I'm almost certain that they are not the same

I think that the flarlics might be the opposite and are developing Pikmin, the problem with your theory is that there would be no way to make more onion if they all fuse together, but if the flarlic was the developing stage that would make more sense, that would explain why the ones we see are buried, why the colored onions we find are not active until we fuse them (because they just finished developing), why there are multiple onions designs/types across the Pikmin series, and how Pikmin can survive if their species depends on something that could get stuck or destroyed

You’ve convinced me. The flarlics always had visual similarities to the onions, and they’re apart of the same family. In Pikmin 4 we’ll definitely learn more about these things and with the evidence you brought up in this video, they have to be some sort of dead onions BTW love the thumbnail design!

I'll like to think they're the frute from the candypop flowers but in an inmature state, the mature ones are the aftual onions

I personally think that the Onions are actually a sort of Queen Pikmin. Let me explain. You know how sometimes, a female worker bee may become a queen bee if raised correctly, and this changes their biology? And you know how queen bees are basically only there to make more bees? Well, I think Onions are actually something similar. Perhaps it’s a 1 in a million for a pikmin to have a special mutation that activates a gene that makes it grow into an Onion instead of a regular pikmin. Regular pikmin are gender less and cannot produce children, but an Onion, despite being unable to move, is large enough to produce pikmin. When pikmin carry something back, the onion literally eats it, and then uses those nutrients to make pikmin seeds.

While I’m not entirely sure if I agree with the theory or not, I do have an additional detail for the “malnourished” idea: When a Pikmin type goes “extinct” (though this could simply mean extinct in the local or reachable area, shown by the red onion in Pikmin 2) the onion produces a seed of said type, either immediately or the following day. In the case of Louie and the red Onion, this could simply be a spare seed, as we don’t know why an Onion goes “dormant” in the first place, however; this would not explain where an Onion gets a seed when it has already spit out a spare, assuming it keeps one. My idea to add on to yours is that it uses its own nutrients in a way that is harmful to itself, seeing as when a pellet is given to an onion after an extinction, it still spits out the normal, expected amount. Of course, it prefers not to do this, which is perhaps even why it goes dormant until approached in the first place unless it knows there is something able to continue its lifespan.

You know... I always had this theory that the master (as well as its uni-type variants) onion from pikmin 3 onwards came from a queen candypop bud, while regular onions came from colored candypop buds, which themselves sprout from pikmin left behind in the ground for far too long

The only real issue with this theory is the scientific names that were revealed for the pikmin and their adjacent species - and the onions and flarlics are different species. They're not even in the same family! (Onions being Lillium pikminporta and flarlic being Bulbus lillium). Which, frankly, makes their relationship even more complicated. Maybe the flarlic is another "prey" or producer species, much like the pellet posies, that the pikmin simply feed on?

I think it's more akin to a younger stage of onion. In a kind of Eeveelution matter, a growing onion needs very specific stimuli to grow into a given type of Onion, while having a lack of any particular stimuli results in a flarlic. The question of how onions propogate is the big question, but apropos of no solid evidence, I assume there's a definite lifespan of a viable onion. When one nears death, it might lift off and scatter seeds to the wind, possiblly by cannabalizing internal Pikmin to form Onion seeds. Thus, a successful "colony" is capable of producing many more Onion seeds, increasing the chance more colonies are successful in the future. The instinct of Pikmin to follow orders of a Captain or leader figure may be an evolutionary trait to make mass propogation more robust, and the bad ending if P1 (and possibly in P4) shows what would happen in the scenario where a colony's leader dies.

I think its not necessarily an onion that’s dead, so much as its an onion that’s reproducing. One of the ways irl aliums (garlic, onions, etc.) reproduce is by dividing at the bulb. This would make sense with your theory too- if an onion has too many types, maybe it undergoes a division process as a flarlic to divide into new onions with only one type of pikmin.

I now have a new head canon where purples, whites, and ice pikmin all had onions at one point, but those onions went extinct forcing them to rely on the flowers to keep themselves from extinction

I think this is true, and I hope the full game will talk more about lore with these flarlics

That does explain the Onions redesigns the Onions die and the Pikmin find a new more developed and adapted version of an Onion this also ties with the type limit.

I assumed that they were just baby onions, not fully grown.

Onion and garlic being similar but the inside being different a onion has layers and a garlic has pieces

Candypop flower > onion > flarlic > seeds for new flowers

What if the onions are only able to produce a low number of pikmin to start with because olimin and the other captmins are using other onions to fill out the regular 100 limit

Could consider it the other way around: Perhaps Farlics are newborn onions yet to fully sprout, and the fact theres so many wild pikmin is simply the result of a lot of Farlics sprouting. And the fact it absorbs into older "Mature" onions to allow more Pikmin on the field could be the onions rejuvinating themselves from a fresher source of energy. And if Farlics are a play on words for "Garlic", then it would make sense because Garlic itself in the bulb is a plant full of nutrients that can sustain itself with it's own source. And it also makes sense as a nutrient for Onions to allow more Pikmin in the world at once.

I…have a theory. You know those onions that were in the good ending of pikmin 1 like the black, pink etc. maybe it’s those onions but the pikmin type of that onion have gone extinct.

A quick conjecture I am having right now is that it goes: large quantities of a pikmin type are eaten -> the monster excretes the pikmin corpses which act as a seed -> then an onion grows at the site -> the pikmin dig the onion out of the ground -> the pikmin start feeding the onion and riding the onion during the night -> glow pikmin fertilize the soil with the corpses from the creatures -> the onion starts producing pikmin -> the onion ages into a flalic -> the pikmin carry the flalic to another onion to allow more pikmin to be active at once -> newly activated pikmin get eaten so the cycle repeats

when i was a kid i used to think pikmin that overwintered in the ground unplucked they would begin to mature and become a candypop bud. and after a few years of that they would grow a bulb and become onions. flarlic seems to be a much more reasonable transition. if you look at the newer candy pop designs they have pikmin like leaves at the base. maybe it spends time underground growing, which would also explain why flarlic have green tips, they're still photosynthetic as they collect nutrients. and analyze the environment, in a marshy wet area they would grow blues and if they grow in a forest that burns often they would become reds etc. that could help explain why onions always end up nearby their effective element, but flarlic seem to be immature onions, rather than dead onions. but i like your theory too.

I'd just say that they're a different species, part of the Pikmin family, but a different species that Olimar named based off of garlic.

its an intereesting theory but it makes more sense to me if a flarlic was a young onion

I like the dark lifecycle that this may imply, but I also suspect that Nintendo might not want that to be canon, but hey have you seen some of the dark Pokémon dex entries?

Some people think a Flarlic is a failed union.

Cool theory. I think it is just an onion that got too old to produce pikmin.

I like to think that if a candy pop bud matures it becomes an onion and leaves behind a flaric seed that is why we mostly see them buried. an alternate theory is that they are onions waiting for the right stimuli to turn into an onion. like a flarlic exposed to fire becomes a red onion and one in water becomes a blue onion. maybe pikmin 5 we get brown pikmin and they can merge with dirt and use it to build

My theory is that its growing and because we dig it out of the dirt with our pikmin it can no longer thrive as an onion

I think you’re right, but I don’t think it takes that many onions to make a flaric because if it did, then there would be a rapidly declining amount of onions, since it requires seven to make a flaric and then nine to make an optimal onion. However, my alternative to this idea is simply that if any onion dies at any number of pikmin or onions, then it will become a flaric a good example is in Pikmin three the blue onion is on the verge of death when we find it according to the logs.

One thing you are lacking in this theory is how onions are even made

Really cool theory! Nice video

My guess is that it's an alternative evolutionary pathway for the onion (just like the different Bulborbs are different species/families/etc), and that it's similar enough that it can act as a pseudo-onion but didn't evolve all the onion's specializations but, tbh, it being an immature/malformed/chemically-exhausted/old onion is pretty interesting too

Instead of overworking, I feel like the reason for most Onion death is time. Why do you think we don't see any Master Onions with every colour everywhere?

I’d assume they just thought well let’s just make a better onion. My head cannon is that it’s just a sibling to the onion. Just having a different look at maybe some different features

Babe wake up new headcanon just dropped

Also worth thinking that maybe this is why onions evolved (between Pikmin 3 and 4) into limiting the number of Pikmin that can be outside.

I don't think it's so much dead onion so much as an unripe onion,like if it was left buried a few more years or something it would mature into a ripe onion.

I believe the Flalic is a premature onion and the reason why it keep doing that weird thing it does is because its trying to create its first pikmin and this could also explain why it is scenically every time you find one its partially buried

I believe that the Flarlics might actually be a juvenile Onion. Or it could be a diverging species of the onion. Like given enough time there could be Onions that fly and there's the Flarlics that can go underground.

Anyone else get an eerie vibe from the onions this game? Something about them is off to me

I think the flarlic is a different type of onion as in the piklopedia they are also part of the candypop family meaning they could just be another kind of onion that evolved to lose legs and get nutrients from the dirt they can be stuck in.

On top of this, we also see duplicate onions in the actual game, which we also absorb into our own onion. Pretty cool!

Hope people will hack the game, adding thousands of flaric bulbs breaking the pikmin limit

This woude explain why the onions change desigen in the games (my theory is it changes to upgrade its power)

They gotta put the pikmin out their misery at this point

Idk if it truly is a dead Onion, it might be sort of in the same family in game though since it is garlic

Maybe those are the onions that have been changing throughout the series

I think that the Pikmin 4 Onions may be polymorphic, occasionally producing Flarics instead of reproductive Onions. This could be to make sure that the maximum amount of Pikmin on the surface scales with the size of the colony so not all of them die at once.

I think it's just an old onion. It probably produced Candypop seeds, sent its pikmin out with the seeds to distribute them, and then degraded into a glorified nutrient bulb that pikmin would ostensibly carry to an onion to feed its growth.

Flarlic is probably a dead onion, I guess.

Very good theory, don’t know why Flarlic is split into 7 sections when there are 8 Onion types

my own guess is that a flarlic simply has *to much* energy but no pikmin to give it to while a normal onion was capable of produsing pikmin

Meh. i suppose if an Onion (Somehow) Manages to Survive Managing Seven Types at once, I suppose it forms a cocoon around itself for a day to develop a strong crystalized shell and Armour. Thus, the Onions from Pikmin 3.

This is actually a really good theory this should be a thing in pikminology

that might explain that pikmin 1/2 3 and 4 looks different

my personal theory is this: onions are very clearly living things. they move on their own, their piklopedia entry states that they have muscular structures on the inside, and they definitely have some form of sentience as they *willingly* follow the S.S. Beagle back to home base. i imagine that onions and pikmin have a symbiotic relationship. the onion breeds new pikmin and gives them shelter, and in return the pikmin go off and retrieve nutrients to bring back to the onion, and the onion uses these nutrients to both feed itself, and make new pikmin. a flarlic is basically a starved onion. the lack of nutrients, whether it be caused by the environment not bearing any, or the onion losing all its pikmin, caused the onion to be deprived of food, and thus lose its plump shape and vivid color. the shape of the flarlic is just the onion's outer flesh caving in to more tightly wrap around its inner structure. as the onion, now flarlic now lacks any energy to move, it tucks in its legs and goes into a sorta hibernation state. it becomes completely inactive, aside from the sputtering motion it does, which side note: i believe the fluttering of the petals that all onions and flarlics do is their way of respiration, flarlics just sputter when doing so because theyre so weak. once in this hibernation state, the flarlics rest to preserve what nutrients are left in them, and they allow other onions to use them to gain extra nutrients.

If white and purples don’t have an onion this theory falls apart since there aren’t 7 onions.

Every onion has an emergency seed right? What about an onion that runs out? Maybe that’s why it’s sputtering?

i think the onions looked better in pikmin 1 and 2 where they were more solid and kind of mechanichal-looking, and didn't fuse together. the goopy-look of pikmen 3 and 4 that has them blend into one never sat right with me.

so what I'm hearing is that the pikmin population resets at the beginning of each installment is bc their onions died

Personally this is what I think. The Onion is both a nest and the Queen for Pikmin. Think about Ants. The Onion starves itself initially in hopes that the young workers would eventually grow up to and harvest food that can be returned to the Onion in order to produce more and more until an army can be properly managed. Perhaps a Flarlic is an Onion that lost its own Pikmin and couldn't get the energy required to produce anymore. It is essentially dried up, it can no longer produce anything and is worthless on its own. Thus requiring it to join an Onion in order to become fed to produce its own Pikmin. Take this like Ant Queens joining nests in order to become a Supercolony! The only difference between Pikmin behavior and Ant behavior is ants are absolutely loyal to the Queen and lack intelligence. Meanwhile, Pikmin clearly are smart and as a result, they act more independently rather than like a hivemind that the Ants have. In essence, their own intelligence works against them... at least until the Captains arrive and take charge of the Pikmin like a sort of Commander.

I think this may be more of a mutation rather than a life cycle, as the game states the onion limits how many Pikmin can be out at a time to prevent high losses, but as we progress and gain more Pikmin we also gain flarlics to increase Pikmin deployment amounts, it's possible that they mutated into the flarlics and new onion both for survival and as a result of growth, due to the increased types of Pikmin in the world, the fact there are so many onion types could also be a reason for the mutation as the solo onions would need lower caps as they have less to despense, where as the merged are capable of higher caps to fit their higher population's strength

Honestly i dont think its dead, i think its just going onto its next life stage. I theorize that they were indeed old onions, but are growing to become burgeoning spiderworts. If you look at the top of the burgeoning spiderworts it looks like the petals of flarlic/onions, but with extra petals and a lot of berries. Those berries look a lot like miniature unbloomed onions. Both onions and garlic(mostly garlic species) create "seed" garlics like this where they flower, which are basically just miniature versions of garlic bulbs. And just like how garlic can be propagated by either division of the garlic bulb, or by planting the mini seed bulbs it makes, i feel like the onioj lifecycle probably has divergent reproduction methods as well. And the ultra spicy berries are just a separate form of the same plant.

I hoped that the second onions would have made like 1 pik-carry+1 5 pik-carry = 3 and so on

Theres one problem. its the part where he says if the oinion does to many flalics it turns nto one. but problem is is that its stated that when you reach your maximun amount of pikmin ( 100 ) that any extra flarlics consumed get turned to nutrients. so that part doesnt make sense.

If you look in the pikolopedia and look at both of their species they are both the candypop bud…

I think they’re onions that don’t have a Pikmin type yet

So… like this? Candy pop bud V Onion V Flarlic

Theres comfirmed to be 8 Onions now so this theory is kind of unbalanced, but I can see it

my theory is the candy pop buds grow into flarlic and then onions. my reason is the little sticking out top of the flarlic looks like a candypop bud that was closed/shut so maybe they bud up when growing so i belive its a young/immature onion in the middle of becoming an onion. (ps. whatever color the candy pop bud is the color the onion will be. when flarlic grow the color slowly flushes the flarlic and grows into the round onion shape) great theory of it being dead! but i belive its a half stage between onions and candypop buds as it looks like its a closed candypop bud itself

i think flarlics are a type of onion made to fule onions like te flood lakes from halo it flood for flood to eat flarlics are onions for onions to eat!! made from dead candypop buds when they go under ground they emerge as flarlics

Theory flarlics appear once a candy popbud that has been used it starts eating its self as to servive causing that popping up bit to appear and that animation it does most likely means it is trying to reproduce but can't and late is consumed by a onion making more sprouts that bloom into candypop buds that will either turn into an onion or be used and turn into a flarlic

I always þrought þey were a juvenile Onion!

This dose make sense as in the game there are mitiple onions

PIKMIN 4 SPOILERS!!!! This has been disproven by the full game. When an onion gets to 100 pikmin limit, it instead turns the flarlic into nutrients (nectar and spicy spray) for the pikmin. And with the onion now being able to have all 8 types of pikmin, the first part has also been disproven. To me, a flarlic reminds me of a plant that hasnt fully grown. Maybe thats whqt the flarlic is? Who knows

Garlic and onions

I thought Flarlics were Onions but not fully grown.

Lore of The Vicious Cycle of The Onion. | Pikmin 4 Theory momentum 100

What if it’s an onion that went through too many pikmin extinctions therefore it used up too much energy trying to prevent its pikmin from going extinct EDIT: it would also explain why we don't have a pikmin type for each color onion we see in the first games good ending

What onions practice cannibalism? 😨

Needs more Candypop

In my headcanon there just male onion counterparts like how does the onions whom internally fertilize them

They should have been called the "Offioff"

PIKMIN FOUR HAS OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON NINTENDO SWITCH,GET IT ONLINE NOW

only one problem to that theory apparently (according to olimar) they will try to get eaten so theyc an't be dead maybe it's just a younger onion or another type that is just made to let the onion let more pikmins out

My man said Thlarlic and thegments

Welp, this is going on the Iceberg

this certainly is a theory

I wonder if a onion evo hold more onions and farlics but how

I think it is an user developed oinion because it is