Latias is a legendary Dragon/Psychic Pokémon first introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. It's the female counterpart to Latios; typically it appears as a minor or event-only legendary, but it gets a bigger role in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Latias is one of my favorite Pokémon, and has been for a long time! ^_^

Description

Latias is highly sensitive to emotions and highly intelligent, smart enough to be able to understand human speech. It has psychic abilities strong enough to telepathically communicate with others, and floats in the air.

It has the ability to refract light off its downy feathers to change its appearance and even turn invisible. Latias also has the unique ability to see what Latios is seeing and project that onto the world around it.

Latias and Latios travel in small herds that rarely make contact with other species. The only specific places they are found in the wild in-game are the Southern Island near Hoenn and the Dreamyard in Unova - in all other games they are available in, they either roam the region or are summoned by a specific item.

With the Latiasite, Latias can Mega Evolve; as Mega Latias, it gains the ability to reach high speeds - up to Mach 4, in fact!

Lore

Latias and Latios both are associated with souls and dreams, though not as much as, say, Celebi with forests or Lugia/Kyogre with the sea.

The Soul Dew, a held item that only affects Latias and Latios, is described to be the solidified spirit of a Latias or Latios; the creation of a new Soul Dew is shown in Pokémon Heroes, confirming this. The Enigma Stone, an event item in HeartGold and SoulSilver, is a Soul Dew that has been excavated from the ground.

Southern Island, where Latias and Latios reside in the Hoenn games, is frequently described as being dreamlike. During the part of the Hoenn remakes where you and Steven Stone travel there, Steven describes being there as feeling as if he is walking in a dream or illusion. The description on the map for Southern Island in those games also mentions that a mysterious veil prevents most people from approaching the island.

In Black/White 2, a NPC suggests that Latias/Latios was drawn to the Dreamyard because of the dreams lingering there.

Trading Card Game

I don't know much about actual TCG gameplay - while I do collect the cards, I do so only for the artwork - but Latias has a lot of interesting and pretty cards!

In the EX Delta Species expansion, Latias got a card where it was Lightning/Metal! That's two gimmicks in one - Delta Species, which are cards with abnormal typing, and dual typing (usually not done in the TCG). The illustration is cute, too - it shows Latias hanging out around the Holon Research Tower, an area in the TCG world.

Latias has three different Fire-type cards, all connected to the Delta Species gimmick: two in EX Holon Phantoms, and one ex card in EX Dragon Frontiers. The artwork for the ex card is very nice! The poor thing kind of looks like it's in the shrimp posture, though. That's my job...

There are only two cards that have both Latias and Latios on them, oddly enough. The first of these, a jumbo card promoting the movie Pokémon Heroes, is so obscure that there isn't even a good scan of it anywhere - the image seen here is cropped from an eBay listing. The card calls the duo 'Bestowers of Dreams', which is a gorgeous title.

I do have two Latias cards of my own - number 105/172 from VSTAR Universe, and the HGSS Promo Latias. The latter is one of the older cards I own, and one of my favorites. It has a matching Latios card, and when put together the illustrations show them flying together. The sky backdrop is really pretty..

Merchandise

Huge shoutout to Soital for documenting their own collection, which I used as reference for this section! It's hard to research Pokemon merchandise because there's just so much - especially for popular Pokémon like Latias and Latios - so stumbling upon their collection is the entire reason why this section is as long as it is.

This first piece of merch I'd like to highlight is from a 7-Eleven promotion celebrating the 10th anniversary of Pokémon movies - here, Latias is representing Pokémon Heroes (without her brother, sadly..), flying through a cloud as the moon shines in the sky. If you managed to collect all the figurines while the promotion was running, you'd get a special container for them all!

The company Re-Ment has made a handful of figurines featuring Latias. The one shown on the right, from the Pokémon Forest 7 line, has Latias as a literal tree-topper! It's since been discontinued, but it's very cute, and truly that's what matters here.

As part of the Poké Lids project, Latias got a manhole cover in Kakuda, a city located in Miyagi Prefecture (in Japan). Here, she's paired with Lapras, the offical 'Support Pokémon' for Miyagi Prefecture. There's stickers, keychains, and badges of this available.

As far as both Latis together go... In 2019 there was the Riding on Latias & Latios line, which featured Latios and Latias giving Pikachu a ride throughout Hoenn. Plushies, keychains, bags, badges, and even more exist from this line!

The duo also got their own Game Boy Advance model! This was sold in Japan starting in July 2002. Legitimate ones go for a lot online nowadays, since they haven't been sold for a long time. I personally think it'd look better if it were white with blue/red highlights, but the colors used are super pretty nonetheless.

This gorgeous shikishi board was sold in 2019 as part of a blind bag-type thing, in a set centered around Hoenn. I only discovered it while making this shrine, but it's already become my favorite piece of official Lati art! The greens are just lovely to look at, hehe..

Other Cool Trivia

• Latias is obtainable without limited-time events or DLC in Sapphire, Emerald (mutually exclusive with Latios), HeartGold, White 2, Alpha Sapphire, and Ultra Moon.
• In side games, Latias is also obtainable without limited-time events or DLC in Channel, Pinball Ruby & Sapphire, both Trozei games, every PMD game except the Light/Stormy WiiWare games and Gates to Infinity, Ranger: Guardian Signs, every Rumble game except for the first, the 3DS Picross game, and Shuffle.
• The official origin of Latias' name (as revealed in the Teraleak) comes from the ancient Greek dialogue Critias, written by Plato.