Dark Light

After Pokémon Black and Pokémon White were released, it seemed like Nintendo and Game Freak wanted to put some more thought and depth into the series to make it a more believable, living world. 

What we saw in Black/White was Game Freak spinning a slightly more mature narrative within their Pokémon games, telling a tale which actually made you think about the world as it exists in the game. It made players put some thought into the world they inhabited and maybe the relationship between Pokémon and their trainers wasn’t all Solrocks and Roselias after all.

What Team Plasma do right

While Team Plasma’s goals of Pokémon equality did eventually turn out to be a ruse formulated by the teams real leader,  thus making their message null and void, it still did give us the character of N. A character who, while he had been manipulated by Team Plasma, did honestly believe that battling Pokémon and confining them in Pokéballs was an act of cruelty. And although the game did end with N being the one to concede his point of view, while never putting the player character in any moral grey area (thus leaving the player’s hands clean in the whole affair), the whole game’s narrative was based around the actions of the villainous team rather than them being an interlude on the player’s quest to be the very best (like no one ever was).

After this I was very much hoping that this trend would continue in the recently released 6th Pokémon generation in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, however it seemed it was never to be, and my hopes of a heavier focus on developing the Pokémon world and a stronger narrative for the more mature fan were sadly unfounded.

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N with Team Plasma

To follow Team Plasma, we got to enjoy the antics of a brand new group of bad guys named Team Flare, named so not only because they wear red and have strange flame inspired hairstyles, but because they’re all obsessed with looking good and fashion (Flare, it’s like Flair. Get it?). Now I’m going to say right now, I love the new Pokémon games, I’ve been playing my 3DS nearly non stop since release, and at this point I have finished the game and am neck deep in post ending content. So I’m rather confident I got everything I could out of the game’s narrative at this point, and it’s the narrative I felt was the game’s only real failing.

In Black and White, the player bumped into Team Plasma a lot, they factored into the events of nearly every town the player visits, masquerading as a Pokémon rights group that feel Pokémon, as living things, should be afforded the same freedoms as humanity and forcing them into servitude and then into combat is cruel treatment. While it became obvious that the average Plasma Grunt was a moron and failed to see the hypocrisy in everything they did, it was their leader N that was the real thinking point of the game, looking like he could be a player character himself and his unfaltering stance in his beliefs.

It’s during the game’s ending that Plasma’s true leader is revealed and that the team’s stated goals have all been a ruse and even N was being manipulated by the team and taken advantage of. The final fight of the game is the most satisfying since the early days when you got to beat the snot out of your rival who has been dogging you since your journey began. It works because you want to take this guy down, not only because he is a total scumbag, but because he had everyone fooled, including you.

Team Flare, however, takes a step back from the previous game and rather than give us another creative and engaging story, it slips back into familiar ground providing nothing all too different from what was seen in the third and fourth generations with Team Magma/Aqua and Team Galactic. The thing that makes Team Flare worse than those previous teams in my mind is that they try to pull it off with the same sincerity behind their leader’s actions as N had, rather than him being the cartoon super villain that Maxie, Archie and Cyrus were previously.

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Natural Harmonia Gropius, or ‘N’

What Team Flare do badly

Right, from here there are going to be massive spoilers about the new Pokémon games X & Y, so if you care even remotely, come back later when you’re done.

The main problem with Team Flare is their leader Lysandre (like anyone couldn’t see that  plot twist coming). He is established as a billionaire and a philanthropist who wants to see the world become a better place. He believes the world is full of bad people who leech on those exceptional few, he states how the future is bleak and if things continue the way they do there will be nothing but disaster, from overpopulation or stagnation. He states that he has poured much of his fortune into trying to remedy this problem, but to no avail, thus he forms Team Flare and begins to go about a much more extreme method of solving this perceived problem with the world.

Notice how I said perceived problem back then, that’s because the problem is entirely that, it’s inside his head. Lysandre talks about how the world is getting worse, how people are selfish and aren’t contributing to the greater good and progress as halted. Now as a social commentary about the current state of the real world, I can see what Game Freak are talking about, drawing parallels between their story in the game and the problems we face in reality, or war and overpopulation, as well as sustainability. That’s fine, my problem is that within the Pokémon universe it makes absolutely no sense.

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Team Flare

Think about any Pokémon game you’ve ever played, now think about the size of the towns and cities, now think of how much open space there is. This is especially true of this newer game, which makes the most of its new graphics to show us beautiful views and landscapes of rolling hills, mountain ranges and forests. Now think of basically any NPC you talk to, they all spout the same inane drivel about how they love Pokémon and Pokémon this and Pokémon that. There is no strife, no earnest fighting and nobody is suffering, the only people who cause any of this at all in X and Y are Team Flare themselves. Lysandre’s ideas of a the world going to crap have no basis in (the game’s) reality, none at all. And so what’s his plan? his final solution? Genocide, I’m not even kidding.

Lysandre plans to use an ancient death machine to kill not only every human in existence, but also wipe all Pokémon from existence too, rendering them extinct. This is where Lysandre goes from being the well meaning guy that’s been pushed too far, to being a cartoon super villain. But the worst thing about all of this, the thing that tops this all off and really makes me shake my head at the whole thing is that it is all played totally straight.

Lysandre is never treated like a madman nor does anyone point out any of these points I’ve made to him, they act as though his goals are noble and it’s only his methods that are questionable. Even after his attempt at genocide is thwarted and he gets buried in his base along with his machine the other characters express nothing but pity over the fact that ‘they couldn’t see things the same way’. Just because he was well meaning, it tries to make him a tragic character, when in fact there was nothing tragic about him, he was just totally insane.

Let me give yet another example, let’s say Lysandre’s plan worked and he killed everyone except for himself and his Team Flare grunts, what kind of beginning would this be to the brave new world? Other than Lysandre himself, every other member of Team Flare is played up for laughs, they’re all idiots, petty criminals, thugs or all of the above. Not only that but there are a few references to membership costing people extortionate amounts of money (amounts the player can never physically afford within the game), so now I’m confused. What type of world is Lysandre trying to create here? I mean that money isn’t going to mean a thing after you’ve killed 99% of the world’s population.

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Higher in Rank, no more developed

How it could have been better

The whole thing could have been handled so much better if Game Freak had treated Team Flare with the same respect and given them the same kind of humanity that they did with Team Plasma. Rather than make them the outlandish cartoon villains, if every member of the team did seem like they were once good people who were being forced to extreme behaviour because they either came to the same conclusions themselves or because he was a charismatic leader than talked them around to his point of view, then we might have had a much better and compelling story about a group of extremists with was a believably noble cause.

If throughout the events of the game Team Flare always showed up genuinely trying to do a ‘good thing’ but their methods were always what raised the player character’s ire with them, then we could have built up to a much more compelling ending with a man at wits end doing something he had been pushed to because of the player’s actions, well meaning or not. Instead, we don’t really learn Lysandre’s final plan until minutes before his eventual downfall, if references to the ultimate threat was hinted at throughout the game then the player would have felt some real desperation to stop him.

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They say the best villains are those that believe themselves to be the hero. If this had been the running theme throughout X and Y, questioning whether or not the player was doing the right thing by fighting Team Flare, maybe their end does justify their means, then we’d have a game that was was too dark to be sold to the market that Pokemon is aimed towards, but we’d also have one hell of a great story to go with one hell of a great game.

13 comments
  1. Completely agree with this.
    Also, the point about the Pokemon World in your hands actually being sunshines and rainbows really makes Lysandre’s point mute, everyone is happy! If the player was shown suffering or a town that couldn’t eat, or people dying from war or famine then maybe he’d have a point. But as you said perfectly, it does not make sense.

  2. Lysandre tells that everybody except the members of Team Flare will die soon. At first I was like “What?! That’s the plan?”, then “He’s trying to create a perfect world with these idiots?”

    All Pokémon need to die too, because they would only be used as tools in wars… In Lysandre’s perfect world they would still be used as tools? Or is he afraid someone would be tempted to use them at some point?

    I guess their membership costs a lot of money because Lysandre wants a world where exist only people who have been “successful” in their lives. So it doesn’t really matter are there big problems in the world, the world is just different from Lysandre’s ideal world, so it’s bad. He’s just a selfish madman who thinks he’s the savior.

    But I’m not sure is everything always happy in the Pokémon World. There was that war about 3000 years ago, but is it the only one? And of course there are a lot of crazy criminal organizations.

  3. Lysandre is obviously insane.
    Especially considering he’s the only one in Flare that seems to know whats really going on.

    The plan to destroy all Pokemon is insane.
    Its like hes going the other way of every crazed bad guy ever in every film ever who says humans are the source of all evil.
    I guess pride is his problem.

    To be fair, the games story was just kinda there until he said he was going to make Pokemon extinct, that made me pay attention. I mean it’d never happen but its a radical action you wouldn’t expect from Pokemon, so in a way he stands out.

    But hes an otherwise terrible villain.

    And I’m sure, like you say, that not everything is perfect, but aside from the criminal organizations thats all we see, rainbows and sunshine all over. To see a town ravaged by war, or families missing father, or even Pokemon starving because they can’t afford to feed them, would have made Lysandre’s point feel more like, maybe this guy has a point, instead of it coming off as craziness.

  4. Ok, after playing through the game(twice) i realized theres one thing Gamefreak could have done to make the story much better. Make AZ the main bad guy, u know the undying king that has lived for 3000 years and has very likely seen the worst of humanity.

    Lets say u fight Lysander in the power plant and u defeat him there. AZ (which u meet for the first soon after) could have taken over Team Flare and used them in a plan to activate the weapon that he himself had built. As for motives theres the fact that he lived long enough to know how evil people could be and thought if things stayed as they were something terrible might happen. Also the fact he had lived for 3000 years without any1 else by his side could have made him crazy enough to attempt this plan (especially since the one pokemon he was looking for was also immortal so a nuke or 2 probly wouldnt phase it)

  5. Hey, it’s the first installment of 6th gen, so obviously the plot is a little bland and senseless at first. Wait till Pokemon Z to see the evolved or fleshed out/better plot like we saw in Emerald/Bw2.
    Also, the fact that YOUR CHARACTER IS A KID and sees the world differently to adults so maybe it’s why you think pokemon is all rainbows because YOU ARE A SPOILED KID WITH A PIKACHU 3DS and whatnot. And also, in every other region, always a kid. So it’s obvious you don’t know what he Lyssandre’s talks about. Just look at the Rocket mafia for starters. Or Cypher and their inhumane pokemon experiments, that’s just people mistreating animals. Now imagine 3rd world regions unlike Kanto or Kalos that obviously we will never see because it’s a kids game and a kid’s game can’t have politics and corrupted governments and peeps in power and stuff.
    So in short, I kinda always thought beign a kid character spoiled the game a bit cuz your a snotty brat meddling in adult affairs but for the better.
    Lyssandre is literally ON FIRE unlike N, his hair and beard are hot. He’s a hot, pitiful fool who’s deluded. But otherwise, hot.
    And I actually like them better than plasma and their N figgit. Really, that gen team is so horrendously overrated… Like Magma’s pajamas.

  6. What if Lysandre was just a rabid genwunner who wanted to keep anymore garbadores from being created?

  7. Has anybody noticed that team flare’s sign is shaped like Blaine’s cane (Blaine is the fire type gym leader from kanto).

  8. Anyone else get sorta Hitler-like vibes from Lysandre? Kill everyone who doesn’t fit into his “perfect” world?

  9. Are you kidding me?! There are organizations and individuals that get ahold of powerful pokemon all the time! The pokemon world is anything but peaceful! Kalos may be seemingly at peace, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the pokemon world isn’t. You have a madman in sinnoh that literally tried to play god, and recreate a world without emotions. It isn’t just organizations. There are individuals too. People like the rival from Gen II that only see pokemon as tools. I disagree with you wholeheartedly. Lysandre had every reason to believe the world was getting worse. We don’t even know how long he lived, or what he went through. Something truly troubling must have struck a chord with him.

  10. Reading this after the XY&Z anime finished airing in Japan, and ,while the anime had its flaws too, I’m definitely feeling a another case of anime-surpassing the game’s plot presentation this season again (the first was Tales of Zestiria the X, which was basically BanNam’s redo of Zestiria’s poor character handling and awkward story pacing+some easter eggs revised to be more hopeful).

    In the anime, even though they revealed Team Flare late-season, they foreshadowed it with the Mega Evolution Specials, they actually showed some flashbacks of Lysandre and his goons (when they were still wearing un-ridiculous scientist lab coats) in their earlier philanthropic days helping the people of the slums/victims of some unnamed conflict with noble intentions, but later being demanded by those poor slum people to give even more to them as they demanded higher standards of living, blablabla they dont wanna do it themselves typical thing, and then that made Lysandre reconsider his stance on helping others (like Ash did throughout all the XY anime!! refer ep2 for most epic freefall-noble-but-in-vain-catch-save-from-the-top-of-a-tower)
    and thus Lysandre became the villian and Lysandre corp became Team Flare, you know the drill; there was even a moment in the Ash confronting Lysandre episode(s) that I felt Lysandre had a point, only because through his flashback he actually revealed without ambiguity that he was a “fallen hero” sorta guy, now bent to help the world in its more inner workings, rather than by just through providing guidelines (like a philanthropist does). For that moment, I felt that Ash was being too 2-dimensional compared to how he was in every other part in the XY series, but no matter…
    It’s almost ironic that the Lysandre is answering the slum peoples’ demands of having a better life by erasing them, thus erasing their arguably selfish behaviors. I

    We even got to skip unnecessary service characters like Calem (the unchosen protag chara) b/c Ash took his place) and straightup got to see the great appeal of the rival trio from the game, heck,.
    There was even a moment in the ending

    Yeah, I Agree. Additionally, I think the pacing for the XY game was misleading and bad.
    The gap between 2nd and 3rd badge made me expect something, but in the end it was just bad pacing. I should add, Gamefreak should stop adding the opposite unchosen protagonist as a interactable main story character, because it’s annoying to see plus too…generic.
    And villainous team this time around….was the biggest disappointment I’ve seen since toppling HGSS’ half-revived Team Rocket.

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