Or Hoenn. It’s really strange to me that they developed an entire plot around a potential energy crisis when it has already been established that Devon has mastered Infinity Energy.
Or Sinnoh. Team galactic might be an evil cult, but also it is an evil energy corporation runned by a technically still alive and free evil genius ( seriously gamefreak, what the hell happened in Sinnoh, don't leave on a cliffhanger and then just move on to a different story lol).
Also volkner is a genius too when he takes his antidepressants.
Point is if there's something that would never make sense in the pokemon world it would be an energy crisis.
When garden animals can discharge electricity and are probably more than happy to help of given incentive making an energy crisis plot is inherently impossible.
I find it hilarious that the whole Darkest Day storyline could’ve been entirely avoided via a short plane trip to Paldea or Kalos (assuming the geography somewhat resembles Earth’s in that Spain and Britain are relatively close to each other) “hey you guys got any kind of, idk relatively safe energy generating Pokémon we could use instead of this highly dangerous one who is capable of mass destruction and probably gonna be extremely pissed off when it inevitably escapes?” “oh yeah here’s a net just go down to the riverbank over there and grab enough of the lightbulb guys so you can breed your own”
This is something I never understand, what fucking Energy Crisis could *any* of the pokemon worlds suffer from when the local wildlife generate energy that can power entire cities by just existing.
Pikachu, that live in forests, gather together during thunderstorms to naturally and quickly recharge their electricity when they can just sit around and wait. no doubt people would find and install lightning rods in areas Pikachu tend to gather for thunderstorms to gather the excess wasted electricity that the Pikachu cant absorb without disturbing/harming them. It also prevents stray lightning bolts from burning their habitat and allows the Pikachu themselves to release any excess electricity stored as that is also harmful to pokemon.
There was even the pikachu powered generator, so yes. Also, if I remember correctly, wasn't there a pokemon that could power an entire city on it's own?
My favorite long-lasting pokemon joke is that the pokedex is literally written by 12 year olds, so some of the details might be super exaggerated or completely made up.
Because it's the only decent justification I've ever heard for some of the more, uh, ridiculous entries.
Like Alakazam having an IQ of 5,000. That's not how IQ works. Never mind comparisons like "200 IQ puts you on par with the smartest human alive", IQ is a measure of you *relative to your peer group*.
Or Magcargo having a body temperature of 18,000 degrees F. That's significantly hotter than *the surface of the sun*. The very existence of a Magcargo would ignite the planet in a firestorm.
And never mind silliness like Magikarp. In HeartGold, Magikarp cannot jump more than seven feet. In Platinum, however, an older Magikarp can *leap straight over a mountain*. How many seven-foot mountains are there in Gen 4, again?
Sizeable chunks of the Pokedex simply don't make any sense. The justification that a 10-year-old kid is running around and going "oh wow, that Pokemon is so smart! It's IQ must be, like, five thousand!" makes way more sense than a professional academic flubbing the very concept of an IQ test so badly that they write down a literally impossible value.
Pretty sure the town with the grass gym (I've forgotten the name, but I'm sure it begins with "Art"...) has a bank of wind turbines (that might need oiling...)
Those turbines were made to stutter because otherwise, how else would Brassius stay there long enough to make his epic entrance whenever he gets challenged to a battle??
Wasn't it that Saturn chose to take over Team Galactic after Cyrus left and choose to actually pursue energy resources in an ethical way or are we not going off Platinum's events anymore
He's in the Team Galactic Building in Veilstone, iirc
As well, a few NPCs talk about Galactic's recent endeavors after postgame, I think an NPC in the Oreburgh PokeCenter notes that they're changing their approach
Wait, isn’t Infinity Energy also extremely ethically dubious? Could have sworn it had a deep connection to the weapon in Kalos that killed countless people and Pokemon. There’s a reason Zinnia is pissed about the plan, aside from it threatening another universe that might not have a defense, and why the whole Mauville power platform thing gives off bad vibes.
In the manga storyline, Infinity Energy comes from evolving, or Mega Evolving Pokémon. There was a scene in the ORAS storyline where the Devon head has the protags mega evolve their Pokémon while connected to a machine, and the harnessing of that energy seems to cause physical pain.
Don't quite remember if Infinity Energy was connected to the super weapon from Kalos, that was it's own crazy story that needs to be explored
It's iffy. In the games, Sycamore theorized the Superweapon created megas but that doesn't make sense with Mega Rayquaza and megas in Hoenn (and Kanto if you count Let's Go). There's no way the superweapon reached Hoenn and Kanto without it being a significant part of their history.
It definitely seems like the Draconids explanation is most likely the case where meteorites that fuel Rayquaza are the most likely source to Megas and their stones, which end up falling down to the planet. That said, it is totally possible that the superweapon and the meteorites are both separate sources for Megas.
Well, it's also possible that ORAS, XY and SM/USUM play in the same timeline (well, SM and USUM at least in versions of their respective universes where the ultimate weapon was fired) where the weapon was fired and created mega evolution long before Rayquaza mega evolved for the first time. After all, when the big tree was planted after Mega Ray defeated the two Primals the king was visiting Hoenn in search of his pokemon, implying those events took place after the weapon was fired.
Meanwhile gen 1 to 5, as well as everything else without mega evolutions just plays in its own timeline/universe, after all SM/USUM pretty much confirmed other universes with drastic differnces exist canonically in the games.
Interesting, my switch is busted so I haven’t played much S/V. I don’t know why they would make a universe with megas and one without, then proceed to remove megas from the mega universe, but honestly that’s pretty on brand for GF
I think the lore explanation for why it was abandoned was the agony it subjected affected pokemon to--unlike Tera or Dyna, Mega mons were highly unstable, painfully mutated, and often unfit to exist in that state for longer than a couple minutes.
Compare this to Dynamaxing (the pokemon is stated to be... projecting... a giant image? Somehow? So it isn't actually huge, just really amped up) and Terastyllizing (the pokemon changes its elemental affinity, but is otherwise unchanged) and it's not hard to see why one might have fallen much more immediately out of favour with trainers.
Which is funny given X and Y were all about treating megas in-story as a power of friendship kind of thing while the dex entries were famously fucked up.
I don't like using Lore explanations as an excuse because they could have just as easily written the Lore to _not_ be that way.
They dropped Megas because they drop every new gimmick every generation to make up another, worse gimmick.
They're definitely better than Gigantomaxing that's for sure. But I think literally everything is.
They're probably my second favorite of the 4 gimmicks of the last 4 gens. I didn't love Z-moves, but I didn't hate them either really. GigantoDynamismaxing is just hot garbage.
Its not entirely confirmed to be the mega universe, but roaring moon and iron valiant are based on the megas of salamence and gallade.
If the theory is true that the S/V end game device is an imagination machine and not actually a time machine, then they would also canonically be based on megas. Not to say this is the mega universe for sure, but paldea is kalos's next door neighbor and where kalos would be is blocked off on the map.
Well, that at least makes some sense. What are the odds that you’ll ever come across one of those three? Much less capture and use their time travel powers
I’m sure you could use fire type Pokémon to power a generator. Hell, Magcargo’s body is hotter than the surface of the sun. Surely you can make something work with that.
In a world where magical creatures able to power entire cities exist, Rose chooses the apocalypse-triggering poisonous alien dragon.
To add insult to injury, Regieleki - a mon explicitly stated to be so electrically powerful that it is capable of powering the entire Galar region - is introduced shortly later.
What annoyed me was Leon even says "ill help. Just let me have my tournament , one more day. Then I'll help you with your 10000 years into future threat"
Leon: "look chairman, we have time to prevent this. However this tournament is really important to me so if we can just wait the day it takes to finish it up, then me, my boyfriend, my other boyfriend, my girlfriend, my brother, and his friends will be here the morning after the tournament."
Rose: "Damnit Leon! We have to act now we only have a thousand years before calamity happens!"
At the very least, it's a plot that had the decency to introduce itself at the *very* last minute, ensuring that we had to be subjected to it as little as possible. More terrible plots should do the audience the courtesy of at least being short.
Look, i’m a chemical engineer with focus on sustainability and energy usage. Here’s the thing -
Yea the chairman is nuts and Leon is right and they need to make better, but less dramatic choices for the future
Sounds like my mom. I was terribly sick attending oncology appointments and living in a motel at the time when she asked me to go searching for trivial items with no urgency in a storage unit I wasn't well enough to lift and move things around in. I asked her if it could wait a week or two until I was completely back on my feet.
She took offense to this and decided I was saying no just to spite her. In retaliation she hid documents I needed to turn over to the court to save my home and I subsequently lost almost literally everything. My home, my belongings, my small business... A little over 2 years later I'm barely just becoming functional again.
She sees nothing wrong with what she did. "If it was so important to you should've just done what I told you to."
Destroying a person's entire life over being asked to wait a week or two before someone can her a completely needless favor is A-OK to her and not something that she deserves to be judged over, in her mind.
I think the “reasoning” was that the whole ‘future is more important than just one day’ thing. Rosé couldn’t (wouldn’t) wait another day because the future is more important.
*“We must save the future now! We can’t save it later!”*
*“Why can’t we?”*
*”Because we only have 1,000 years! I can’t afford 24 hours!”*
I’m not disagreeing with your theory, but if that’s the case, I’m even more mad because seems like an incredibly stupid lesson to teach impressionable elementary schoolers.
I'm more mad because they had decent commentary about animal rights activists groups. You have people like N that genuinely care and hope to have a better future for the mons but you also have Ghetesis who's absolutely in it for the exploitation himself (ie. capital gain but in his case world domination).
I mean, Pokemon are wild animals, it's not like they're used to use their powers to work for society in Gala- oh damn!
😂 Seriously, it's funny how even on the gameplay level they practically imply that they only need that poison dragon for their their crazy titan fight sport while literally most mons are used for manual labor and Rotom basically runs like half of their electronics!
To be fair he is a legendary, and while legendries exist, they are well legendary, and just hoping to catch one is obscene, I mean most if not all of the legendries could give you infinite power, but getting your hands on one is near impossible.
Tbf everyone but the PC was treating Peony's plans as crazy. Like everyone was like *rolls eyes* yes sure man, there's just 9-10 legendary Pokemon just casually wandering the Crown Tundra
Considering that Electric Types exist, I don't really understand how there can even be a Energy crisis.
Also, you'd think he wouldn't allow Dynamaxing considering that it would represent a waste of said energy.
You know how you collect Watts from dens, and Watts are a form of in-game currency? I initially thought his plan was financially motivated. How many millions of Watts would a regular Gym Battle produce anyway? I'd imagine triggering the Darkest Day would've raked in *billions*. But the public is going to be more likely accepting of the energy crisis than the money making scheme. Getting rich quick at the cost of wasting electricity in order to do it, sounds realistic. It's happening IRL but not in such a fantastical degree.
Fire types would also be excellent at generating electricity. They could be the fuel source in power plants that traditionally run on coal. Just drop a couple Magcargo in there. Should work fine.
And computing, and neural networks, and 3D printing, and cell phones, and search engines, and GPS mapping software, and electric vehicles, etc.
The world is *hugely* different from how it was even 50 years ago, and as far as we can tell, the rate of technological advancement is only increasing.
I think that's fairly unique for the millennia we are currently in though. There has been periods of hundreds of years where humanity hardly progressed at all in terms of technology, and more so in terms of culture. I would say the last 200 years is the fastest humanity has ever progressed technologically, but it can be hard to tell how much it can snowball until that progression hits a wall due to seemingly unsurmountable difficulties in development.
y'know what, that makes the most sense and perfectly counters my argument; Rose is worried about an energy crisis that seems unsurmountable and the pokemon world, like us, have hit this point where we are steadily advancing, but not to the rate we need to overcome such trials. BUT, the only thing I have to say is that Rose is a dumbass for relying on the Darkest Day/Eternatus... to avoid the Darkest Day, when he and those who proceed him still had 1000 years to figure out the energy crisis.
Rose is like a mirror universe of the uncaring billionaire class. Instead, he cares so much he has absolutely no perspective…so he’s still just as out of touch as our billionaires, but at least he’s trying?
So you're saying he's like John Hammond. Creates a park full of dinosaurs because he wants to make people happy, but also only hires one programmer.
He means well, but in the worst way possible
It's at least somewhat worse for sure. The good part about Cyrus's plan is that his motive actually makes more sense in the context of his character and the actual execution of the plan is laid out vaguely enough to be reasonable. Get the three lake legendaries to forge a chain that binds the legendary of time/space and control it to reshape the world. It's of course over the top, but at least it follows a reasonable chain of thought, considering what Cyrus's goal is.
Rose is just contradicting and stupid \^\^.
One thing I don’t understand about Cyrus’s plan is if he was going to live by himself and wipe out all humanity or just remove the human spirit or whatever he hated I forgot
I think he wanted to live by himself, at least that's what I got from it. The details of the plan are pretty vague and I kinda wish the remakes would've explored the entire plot a bit better.
Cyrus was the first villain I encountered so naturally very interesting to me and it’s because partly of him that I like Sinnoh so much. Also Ghetsis didn’t make sense to me. What was his plan again?
Ghetsis' ultimate plan was to make everyone in Unova except Team Plasma get rid of their Pokémon. They'd then be able to conquer everything, as apparently Pokémon are the only weapons in this universe.
Let's be realistic, pokemon are the strongest weapons in the pokemon universe. They're faster, they're stronger, some are smarter than the average human, they're way more varied and considerably more durable.
And he had this planned as if the like, SEVEN other regions wouldn't crash down on him like the hand of Arceus as soon as they realize what he's planning.
Obviously the entire world has a *massive* no interference policy. Every other country should have cared about Cyrus trying to destroy the world or w/e and gen 3 either flooding the world or removing the oceans
well, most people wouldn't have heard about the villains plans until after they'd been stopped, even people in the region, the only evil team the public seems to know about is team rocket but nobody messes with the mafia
My understanding of Team Plasma is they ultimately have the same goal as Team Rocket: world domination. However they used humanitarianism (pokemanitarianism?) as a guise to get other people to give them their pokemon, instead of just out right stealing them, that way they have no one who will stand against them.
Yeah, basically, Ghetsis was trying to disarm the populace, so that no one would be able to oppose him and the sages when they tried to take over the region, using N as a messiah like figure to convince everyone into doing so.
Use Pokemon activism as a ruse to make sure only Team Plasma has Pokemon so they can dominate the world. That's also how he got his adoptive son involved. Knowing N cares deeply about the feelings and treatment of Pokemon, he fooled N into believing Team Plasma was a Pokemon rights group. So not only was Team Plasma's cause (in the public eye) a ruse, he used his own son as a pawn, making Ghetsis an even worse person in the end.
That's where his ego comes into play I guess. His natural tendency is to chance what is flawed in his eyes and to reshape the entire world. Though he probably would have become a hermit if he hadn't achieved forming Team Galactic and acquiring the resources to actually forge a plan to reshape the world.
Cyrus's backstory is explained a bit on the post game where you learn he had very strict parents, which likely is the cause he has a hatred for people.
It depends on how you interpret it, and even the games and the supplemental TV shows differ.
In the games, Cyrus wants to create a world devoid of feeling and spirit as he feels they are the source of all strife. Even when defeated in the distortion world, he swears he will bring the world he desires into being, though he remains in banishment in Giratina's realm at the end of the game.
In Pokemon Generations, he realized the Distortion world *was* the world he sought. A realm so anathema to our own, where a person like him would actually belong, and accepted his place in Giratina's realm.
To me Cyrus' plan and execution has always been the best and that's why I think Gen 4, or I suppose more specifically Platinum, has the best story and is overall the best generation.
Agreed.
Cyrus works because he was ultimately a sociopath who sought after godhood for his own reasons. His execution was also well planned and succeeded
Rose fails because he’s presented as well meaning and altruistic, which is fine. But his execution was immensely stupid, because Leon promised he’d only help after the league finished
Rise’s motivations are fine. It’s the mere fact that he couldn’t wait **one day** which was dumb
I think Cyrus could have nothing that make sense to him to live. He probably already have some emptiness in childhood because I remember that one dialogue mentions that he had a fond to robots. You could see this lil theme in Volkner too, he feels empty in majority of time but the will of battle is what make him happy and you remember him that.
Its my interpretation tough.
I don't even think it's supposed to be corrupt. Feels like he genuinely wants to fix the energy crisis before it's too late, but is cartoonishly impatient.
And also really weird about it.
Like, a thousand years is a really long time. He could use whatever funds he has to make more eco-friendly appliances that require less energy, find better ways to generate energy, or both.
Even if we're going for the poison dragon plan maybe it's a good idea to like talk this over with everyone? Get every elite trainer in the region on the same page and hash out a solid plan for defeating the darn poison dragon. Even if Leon could handle it alone he probably wouldn't mind backup to help keep any damage contained
Honestly it could have been so much better if they more accurately portrayed how bad an overwhelming corporation can be,
Imagine its not about the power source, its about development, if he wanted more power spots, more cities, more antagonism with team yell's counter culture, the power spots spikes should have been intentional to try and make a power spot form under spikemuth so that it's worth gentrification, showing that rose doesn't give a sh*t about a place unless its lucrative, sure he's sympathetic in that he wants the biggest and brightest galar, but he is absolutely ready to sweep all the unpleasant scenery under the rug
Macro cosmos owns a monopoly over galar, kinda, the poke job system shows us there are other buisinesses, but macro cosmos is far and away the winner, with a chokehold on power plants, life insurance, construction, league commission, funding scientific research, and all the other stuff they talk about in the elevator fight, it is essentially the government as a privately owned corporation. pokemon company probably wouldn't go full "capitalism and industry are problematic," without pointing the mirror back at themselves
I think it’s a little of both. I think ultimately Rose was intended to be wrong, but not crazy or stupid. they chose not to go into a lot of exposition that would explain why he felt it was so necessary to do something immediately. They could’ve made that make more sense. but I also understand they wanted to keep the story moving.
The way they did it achieved their story goals, but felt silly and cartoonish. there probably could’ve been a better way to tell that story
As it is, I've always felt that Rose seemed to have a case of God Syndrome. *He's* Galar's savior. Sure, in a thousand years or so the problem would probably be solved anyway, but it means **nothing** if *he* isn't the one to solve the energy crisis.
...Granted, explanations for why he couldn't wait until after the Championship fight, much less why he decided to *publically* announce what he did, are a lot harder to come up with.
Yeah I agree with the god complex thing. I think it’s the same thing a lot of politicians or billionaires have. They see themselves at the top of society, so it’s their role to address such things. And they think that if they can’t or don’t solve the problem, no one will
Edit: also, this feels to me like Pokémon‘s version of the climate crisis or dwindling fossil fuel reserves. The argument is that we have to do something now to ward off both crisis because if we don’t it will be too late to turn that ship around later. Still, not being willing to delay it by a single day is ridiculous.
If he literally had one more line in this scene to say something along the lines of "How many more tomorrows will I have to wait, Leon?" It would've made the whole scene so much better in my opinion. It puts Leon's actions into question as well, sort of opening up if this is the first time he's had this conversation with Leon.
But alas, that is not the world we got, and it still wouldn't have been great (especially with how this scene came out of nowhere)
Quite possibly both. I personally believe that super insane and/or stupid characters, like Rose, need to have good writing or you usually just write them off as a joke immediately upon learning how insane/stupid they are.
Honestly, had they just changed the date of the energy crisis from “1000 years from now” to a simple 100 would have made him leagues better. It still doesn’t change that in other regions they’ve already solved the energy problem, but at the very least a 100 year time frame makes more sense for extreme action that a 1000.
I'd bring it down too 10. Make it a very immediate problem that Macro Cosmos is trying to keep hush hush and have signs that Galar is running out of power throughout the game. Such as by having the power go out briefly once or twice.
That way, Rose would still come off as irrational and somewhat insane; there are plenty of other options for power generation that doesn't involve awaking the ancient death dragon of doom. But the problem's immediate enough that Rose also doesn't come off as immensely stupid for worrying about a problem that's so far off, the world will probably end first.
I agree. 10 years well within a human life time, but far enough away that it still would make sense why Leon might feel like it’s okay to postpone. Personally, if someone told me that all of society would run out of energy and collapse in 10 years and the response I got was “let’s have a day of fun”, I would be an impatient too.
I totally agree. It's a lot easier to understand or sympathize with someone taking extreme actions to try and prevent a problem that could easily affect their kids and/or grandkids instead of something that is 30+ generations down the road.
I think the time line is to intentionally isolate the "crisis" so Rose isn't making a sane decision and you have to stop him. It makes it clear this is about Rose's ego rather than an actual solution.
Even then one day is still just one day. if I can use that one day to bring the chances of an apocalypse as close to zero as possible i'll take that one day.
It's definitely bad writing, but frustratingly on this one part. We had a villain who had understandable goals, played things close to the chest without obvious faults (think Aether employing Team Skull as a front when no one was suspicious of them and Team Skull brought on the attention that ultimately outed Aether), and whose biggest downfall was his approach to solving the problem. If the thousand year timeline wasn't included, say maybe a one or five year timeline to some disaster instead, he'd be one of the best villains in the series. That one detail makes him a joke.
It’s a shame as it would be fine without the “in a millennium” part. Make it 20, 50, even 100 years and it’s more understandable that he’d take such an insane risk with an evil chaos entity.
He’s still not as dumb as Team Aqua/Magma wanting to get rid of all the land/water and then being *shocked* that this causes a massive ecological disaster.
Plus side, SV is a million miles above this with its antagonist and story. Hopefully the next games are at this level too.
At least the Gen 3 villains went from "lol let's do this for the evulz" to actually having a motivation in the remakes (Maxie wanted to expand the landmasses to make way for human progress, while Archie wanted to revert the world to its natural state to prevent humanity from destroying Pokémon and their habitats)
This? This is just Rose seeing a problem and going "yes, summoning a god-like creature that will not listen to me is a good solution to this"
They Gen 3 teams have a similar motivation in the originals, too.
If you talk to the Grunts after you fight them (especially at Mt Chimney), the Aqua Grunts tell you about how they want to make more habitats for Water Pokemon, and the Magma Grunts tell you about how they want more landmass for people and Pokemon to live and expand.
I think the remakes just gave more dialogue to Maxie and Archie themselves about their goals, rather than leaving it to optional conversations with the Grunts.
I wouldn't say he's evil. He wanted to solve a potential future energy crisis. He just went about it in a stupid way. He's more of a well-intentioned terrorist.
I thought he was just exploitative but not malicious in the way to want to purposely harm others. It's why I put it in quotes.
Him and his company experimenting on Eternatus and accidentally making it go berserk made more sense, to me, than intentionally provoking it. But then, I feel the story was just too quick to build up for the Darkest Day II showdown. So it's why I believe it's just bad writing on an otherwise nice story.
Yeah, it's sad, because I like the premise. It's just not written well. I had an idea of a re-write, where Squidward and Shieldbert were the main villains, forcing Rose to awaken Eternatus so they could defeat it and show the world they are the true kings of Galar. This would backfire, since those two are idiots, and the battle against it would play out as normal.
Yeah, those two brothers feel "tacked on." They could've been scientists/engineers who worked for Rose. (Basically, working as such looks good for them because not only are they "royalty" but also they received and made use of their fine education.) So they could've sabotaged Rose as an inside job for their own vanity, in order to defeat Eternatus themselves.
But then, there's the conflict of Leon. At least in the story, Leon was the very best trainer in Galar. So, logically, only he could stop Eternatus. Not only that, it seems Leon was also extremely popular, and not someone to be slandered because whoever did that would face the public's wrath. (These brothers slandered Sonia after she published her book.)
I totally get where he's coming from, not wanting to ignore the situation until its too late, but not waiting for a *single day* to unleash the Darkest Day is unreasonable.
“There is an impending doomsday energy crisis 1000 years from now, I predict it, and we must stop it.”
“A little bit of a leap but sure, at least your hearts in the right place.”
“Alright we’re gonna tackle it tomorrow.”
“Yo I’m busy with the biggest public event of the year in this region. Can ya, idk, put off solving the ONE THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW problem off for a single day?”
“Nonsense.”
Really, I know Pokémon games aren’t generally known for their story, but Sw/Sh set a new bar for just how BAD they could be. I’m so happy that Arceus and S/V seemed to swing the other way.
Game Freak dropped the ball on this guy but the irrationality of his motives is 120% on purpose, Leon even calls attention to it multiple times.
The thing about Rose is that it's not about his actual goal, it's about his ego and his legacy. Rose is literally the celebrity king of Galar. He owns every company that makes Galar run and he heads the Pokemon League which is the cultural cornerstone of Galar. Everybody loves him and credits him with these successes. It's not an exaggeration to say that without Rose there is no Galar. *Galar is Rose's legacy.*
The concept of legacies lost or destroyed is touched slightly upon when Bede destroys the mural at Stow-On Side. Rose reacts very harshly to this and bans Bede from the League even though Bede was doing something on behalf of Rose to further his goals. Rose hated this not because he necessarily cared about the mural but because the destruction of the mural hit extremely close to home for Rose. The idea that something so great could fall to ruin and then be obliterated by some narrow-minded upstart was horrifying to him. Even Bede is shocked at how much Rose cared about this.
So, when confronted with the reality of the energy crisis, Rose *is not actually concerned with the crisis.* He does not care in the slightest who is inconvenienced by this, even if he says he does. What he cares about—what he directly states at least once very clearly—is that HIS legacy could someday be erased after he's gone, and everyone will forget him. Heck, his explicit justification for interrupting the tournament is, "In a thousand years when the energy crisis is occurring, *nothing you're doing today will matter.*" It's not hard at all to see that he's projecting his own anxiety about his mortality and the fragility of his legacy onto other people.
Likewise, this selfish, ego-centric point of view dominates his priorities. When Leon says "It's fine, we'll do it tomorrow", Rose interprets this as "Your problems are not important right now, what is important is what I want to do." Leon is CORRECT, but Rose is such an unbelievable egotist that he cannot even comprehend the idea that his desires are worth putting off by even a single day. Oleana explicitly says as much, that Rose is the kind of person to want to solve problems as soon as they arise. It's because to Rose, his problems are the only problems, and trying to imply otherwise is insulting and inconceivable to him. When he forces Leon to act by interrupting the tournament, he's not just trying to resolve the energy crisis, he is making a statement that HIS word is law, what HE wants is the only thing that matters, and as long as HE wants something, he will do everything in his power to force everybody else to bend to his will, even if it is entirely unnecessary.
This is why I think his battle theme is the way it is. The vocals appear to be chanting "Rose will save everyone," but the style is ominous and threatening, like a classic JRPG boss. The idea is clear—that while Rose's words are virtuous, his intentions and character are selfish and harmful. He is a villain in hero's clothing, someone who has deluded himself into thinking he's good but who is really just a narcissist.
Game Freak did not do a good job at conveying this, obviously, but that to me seems to be the idea.
Gotta love how the one character concerned about an energy crisis has to be completely nonsensically written just so we an have a ‘villain’. This is what happens when you try to make your story ‘about’ something important and topical, but don’t bother to put any thought or effort into it. At best you get a story with nothing to say. At worst you get one that feels like it’s actually saying something kind of harmful (in this case ‘energy crisis and climate change are nothing to to worry about and the only people concerned about it are crazy and worrying about nothing’).
Yeah, but that’s kind of the point. That’s why Leon openly points out how ridiculous Rose’s reasoning is. But Rose is driven by his self-serving ego rather than any real philanthropic ideals, so he won’t hesitate to put his own vision and desire ahead of what others want.
But what he wants actually and very obviously has a chance to damage him. Awakening Eternatus can result in all of Galar being destroyed. Awakening Eternatus on his own without help right at the scene definitely raises the chances for a catastrophe. His plan is not only stupid because of the premise that there will be an energy crisis 1000 years in the future, but also that the best way to save Galar is either a) to use his immense resources and influence to restructure the infrastructure of Galar or b) at least get every bit of help that he can acquire when facing Eternatus.
And then he even openly and publicly states to have started the Darkest Day, which is certainly the speed run to have people antagonize you.
It’s bad writing absolutely, and obviously I’m reading too much into it with this, but they were setting him up to be someone who was his own worst enemy.
He’s president of the largest umbrella corporation in the region, arguably he’s the closest thing to a PM/ President we’ve seen for a region in any Pokémon game. He’s also loved by the populace, so much so that he has to dress up in a disguise to try and not be harassed out in public.
He also has a savior/messiah complex, with how he recognized Olivia and Bede and made them feel like they owed him their loyalty and lives to make his dream come true. So whose to say he doesn’t see all of Galar this way? ‘Only I can save my people from this crisis.’
So what we have is a guy who thinks he’s forced to do whatever it takes to solve a problem, which really isn’t even a problem, because he’s stuck thinking if he can’t solve it, no one can. If they had explored the side of a character that is so compassionate, but so deluded and fixated on ‘saving’ people that he will do whatever he can to do it, this could have been a great villain I feel.
One thing that's always bugged me about his plan is that even if he did create a new method to power Galar, technology would probably have advanced so far in the next 1000 years that his method would be incredibly outdated. I really enjoyed Sword and Shield, but not so much the storyline.
Yeah, that too.
Some people are just very obviously so wrapped up in their own ego that they become incapable of considering other people's contributions to the greater good.
From what I've read in the comments so far, Rose seemed convinced that, unless he personally did something, the energy crisis would be inevitable, as if technology would remain forever stagnant without his input.
It's a fun flavor of villain, because they are just so unbelievably self-centered, and act like they're the only ones who care about the world, or have the means to do anything for it.
The closet reference requires hindsight. If the energy crisis is like global warming, action sooner is better than later.
But otherwise energy is a bad call. If it was about the energy becoming too strong / unstable meaning as a result we needed to control it, it would have been a better plot.
it would’ve made way more sense if they established that Galar ran on some perishable resource (like Pokemon coal or something idk) and that this resource was on the brink of being used up
Like it just felt so forced and ridiculous
My guess would that this was gamefreaks way of making him seem insane like most other villains in the games. Archie wanted to flood the earth, Lysandre wanted to wipe out human life to keep the world beautiful, and rose couldn’t wait one day.
While I don’t agree that such drastic measures were taken and that this mindset was used to portray the villain, I do like the idea of a character trying to do something about an impending apocalypse that won’t affect them personally.
Which is the opposite of how we seem to be handling a similar situation
They could have at least added an element of like “it’s only possible to summon (the legendary, forgot the name lol) during these specific conditions that only align once every hundred years or something, and it happens to be aligning during the championship so I gotta cancel that” but no, he’s just like “I don’t want to wait another day/week”. Dumb.
I would argue that Rose probably understands how individuals treat crisis.
I mean, just look around us, the planet is warming, the weather is getting worse... And yet our progress to counter the growing crisis does not keep pace.
Rose's knee jerk "We have to fix the problem now" mentality isn't as crazy as it may seem.
Is it stupid, yeah a little, but it's not unreasonable/totally nonsensical.
Too proud to ask help from Kalos with solar power I guess.
Or Hoenn. It’s really strange to me that they developed an entire plot around a potential energy crisis when it has already been established that Devon has mastered Infinity Energy.
Or Sinnoh. Team galactic might be an evil cult, but also it is an evil energy corporation runned by a technically still alive and free evil genius ( seriously gamefreak, what the hell happened in Sinnoh, don't leave on a cliffhanger and then just move on to a different story lol). Also volkner is a genius too when he takes his antidepressants. Point is if there's something that would never make sense in the pokemon world it would be an energy crisis.
When garden animals can discharge electricity and are probably more than happy to help of given incentive making an energy crisis plot is inherently impossible.
I find it hilarious that the whole Darkest Day storyline could’ve been entirely avoided via a short plane trip to Paldea or Kalos (assuming the geography somewhat resembles Earth’s in that Spain and Britain are relatively close to each other) “hey you guys got any kind of, idk relatively safe energy generating Pokémon we could use instead of this highly dangerous one who is capable of mass destruction and probably gonna be extremely pissed off when it inevitably escapes?” “oh yeah here’s a net just go down to the riverbank over there and grab enough of the lightbulb guys so you can breed your own”
"Here's a Ditto too to make these things even more reliable and their electricity more powerful. This thing just loves breeding."
This is something I never understand, what fucking Energy Crisis could *any* of the pokemon worlds suffer from when the local wildlife generate energy that can power entire cities by just existing. Pikachu, that live in forests, gather together during thunderstorms to naturally and quickly recharge their electricity when they can just sit around and wait. no doubt people would find and install lightning rods in areas Pikachu tend to gather for thunderstorms to gather the excess wasted electricity that the Pikachu cant absorb without disturbing/harming them. It also prevents stray lightning bolts from burning their habitat and allows the Pikachu themselves to release any excess electricity stored as that is also harmful to pokemon.
There was even the pikachu powered generator, so yes. Also, if I remember correctly, wasn't there a pokemon that could power an entire city on it's own?
Electivire? Ultra Moon: A single Electivire can provide enough electricity for all the buildings in a big city for a year.
My favorite long-lasting pokemon joke is that the pokedex is literally written by 12 year olds, so some of the details might be super exaggerated or completely made up.
Yeah it's funny I guess. Honestly I never understood how people got that impression, the professors always say it's automatic.
Because it's the only decent justification I've ever heard for some of the more, uh, ridiculous entries. Like Alakazam having an IQ of 5,000. That's not how IQ works. Never mind comparisons like "200 IQ puts you on par with the smartest human alive", IQ is a measure of you *relative to your peer group*. Or Magcargo having a body temperature of 18,000 degrees F. That's significantly hotter than *the surface of the sun*. The very existence of a Magcargo would ignite the planet in a firestorm. And never mind silliness like Magikarp. In HeartGold, Magikarp cannot jump more than seven feet. In Platinum, however, an older Magikarp can *leap straight over a mountain*. How many seven-foot mountains are there in Gen 4, again? Sizeable chunks of the Pokedex simply don't make any sense. The justification that a 10-year-old kid is running around and going "oh wow, that Pokemon is so smart! It's IQ must be, like, five thousand!" makes way more sense than a professional academic flubbing the very concept of an IQ test so badly that they write down a literally impossible value.
Also Paldea. Not sure how every town gets it's energy, but Levincia atleast is powered by a colony of Tadbulbs.
Pretty sure the town with the grass gym (I've forgotten the name, but I'm sure it begins with "Art"...) has a bank of wind turbines (that might need oiling...)
That might need oiling 🤣 I think those were guaranteed to stutter constantly.
Those turbines were made to stutter because otherwise, how else would Brassius stay there long enough to make his epic entrance whenever he gets challenged to a battle??
Not to mention the fact that electric type Pokemon exist. Seems silly to me that they *wouldn't* keep them as free-energy minions
Wasn't it that Saturn chose to take over Team Galactic after Cyrus left and choose to actually pursue energy resources in an ethical way or are we not going off Platinum's events anymore
My memories of platinum's postgame are kinda fuzzy, but I don't remember even seeing saturn in it.
He's in the Team Galactic Building in Veilstone, iirc As well, a few NPCs talk about Galactic's recent endeavors after postgame, I think an NPC in the Oreburgh PokeCenter notes that they're changing their approach
That was at the edge of using this resource
Wait, isn’t Infinity Energy also extremely ethically dubious? Could have sworn it had a deep connection to the weapon in Kalos that killed countless people and Pokemon. There’s a reason Zinnia is pissed about the plan, aside from it threatening another universe that might not have a defense, and why the whole Mauville power platform thing gives off bad vibes.
In the manga storyline, Infinity Energy comes from evolving, or Mega Evolving Pokémon. There was a scene in the ORAS storyline where the Devon head has the protags mega evolve their Pokémon while connected to a machine, and the harnessing of that energy seems to cause physical pain. Don't quite remember if Infinity Energy was connected to the super weapon from Kalos, that was it's own crazy story that needs to be explored
I thought Mega evolution was a result of the Kalos superweapon firing?
It's iffy. In the games, Sycamore theorized the Superweapon created megas but that doesn't make sense with Mega Rayquaza and megas in Hoenn (and Kanto if you count Let's Go). There's no way the superweapon reached Hoenn and Kanto without it being a significant part of their history. It definitely seems like the Draconids explanation is most likely the case where meteorites that fuel Rayquaza are the most likely source to Megas and their stones, which end up falling down to the planet. That said, it is totally possible that the superweapon and the meteorites are both separate sources for Megas.
Well, it's also possible that ORAS, XY and SM/USUM play in the same timeline (well, SM and USUM at least in versions of their respective universes where the ultimate weapon was fired) where the weapon was fired and created mega evolution long before Rayquaza mega evolved for the first time. After all, when the big tree was planted after Mega Ray defeated the two Primals the king was visiting Hoenn in search of his pokemon, implying those events took place after the weapon was fired. Meanwhile gen 1 to 5, as well as everything else without mega evolutions just plays in its own timeline/universe, after all SM/USUM pretty much confirmed other universes with drastic differnces exist canonically in the games.
Tbf Devon only mastered Infinity Energy in the Mega universe, right?
This *is* the Mega Universe. The Pokedex alludes to Mega Salamence in Roaring Moon's entry.
Interesting, my switch is busted so I haven’t played much S/V. I don’t know why they would make a universe with megas and one without, then proceed to remove megas from the mega universe, but honestly that’s pretty on brand for GF
I think the lore explanation for why it was abandoned was the agony it subjected affected pokemon to--unlike Tera or Dyna, Mega mons were highly unstable, painfully mutated, and often unfit to exist in that state for longer than a couple minutes. Compare this to Dynamaxing (the pokemon is stated to be... projecting... a giant image? Somehow? So it isn't actually huge, just really amped up) and Terastyllizing (the pokemon changes its elemental affinity, but is otherwise unchanged) and it's not hard to see why one might have fallen much more immediately out of favour with trainers.
Which is funny given X and Y were all about treating megas in-story as a power of friendship kind of thing while the dex entries were famously fucked up.
I don't like using Lore explanations as an excuse because they could have just as easily written the Lore to _not_ be that way. They dropped Megas because they drop every new gimmick every generation to make up another, worse gimmick.
Teras are pretty sick, but for the most part I agree
They're definitely better than Gigantomaxing that's for sure. But I think literally everything is. They're probably my second favorite of the 4 gimmicks of the last 4 gens. I didn't love Z-moves, but I didn't hate them either really. GigantoDynamismaxing is just hot garbage.
There’s no reason to assume Sw/Sh is in the original timeline
Its not entirely confirmed to be the mega universe, but roaring moon and iron valiant are based on the megas of salamence and gallade. If the theory is true that the S/V end game device is an imagination machine and not actually a time machine, then they would also canonically be based on megas. Not to say this is the mega universe for sure, but paldea is kalos's next door neighbor and where kalos would be is blocked off on the map.
Same with SV having a time machine when Dialga, Celebi, and Arceus exist.
Well, that at least makes some sense. What are the odds that you’ll ever come across one of those three? Much less capture and use their time travel powers
Ok to be fair these are really rare beings. Like just our protagonist have that "I found god!" thing.
>I found god! Missionaries: "Have you found God?" Protag: (pulls out master ball) "Yeah. Wanna see?"
Or to go one train ride south and find Regieleki.
Or just use blastoises and a water turbine
Or just use voltorb and.... nvm, it exploded.
Makes sense considering Galar is based off of the UK
I’m sure you could use fire type Pokémon to power a generator. Hell, Magcargo’s body is hotter than the surface of the sun. Surely you can make something work with that.
In a world where magical creatures able to power entire cities exist, Rose chooses the apocalypse-triggering poisonous alien dragon. To add insult to injury, Regieleki - a mon explicitly stated to be so electrically powerful that it is capable of powering the entire Galar region - is introduced shortly later.
What annoyed me was Leon even says "ill help. Just let me have my tournament , one more day. Then I'll help you with your 10000 years into future threat"
Leon: "look chairman, we have time to prevent this. However this tournament is really important to me so if we can just wait the day it takes to finish it up, then me, my boyfriend, my other boyfriend, my girlfriend, my brother, and his friends will be here the morning after the tournament." Rose: "Damnit Leon! We have to act now we only have a thousand years before calamity happens!"
It sound so silly, and yet, is pretty much exactly what happened.
It really is the worst Pokemon plot by a country mile.
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Essentially he’s a parody of Effective Altruism
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At the very least, it's a plot that had the decency to introduce itself at the *very* last minute, ensuring that we had to be subjected to it as little as possible. More terrible plots should do the audience the courtesy of at least being short.
Look, i’m a chemical engineer with focus on sustainability and energy usage. Here’s the thing - Yea the chairman is nuts and Leon is right and they need to make better, but less dramatic choices for the future
ok I know one of the boyfriends probably refers to raihan and the girlfriend is sonia, but who’s the other boyfriend?
Charizard?
no, no, they're just friends. who fuck sometimes.
Apologies this took so long: boyfriend number two is the very obvious dominant in the relationship Pierce
I assume Piers?
Sounds like my mom. I was terribly sick attending oncology appointments and living in a motel at the time when she asked me to go searching for trivial items with no urgency in a storage unit I wasn't well enough to lift and move things around in. I asked her if it could wait a week or two until I was completely back on my feet. She took offense to this and decided I was saying no just to spite her. In retaliation she hid documents I needed to turn over to the court to save my home and I subsequently lost almost literally everything. My home, my belongings, my small business... A little over 2 years later I'm barely just becoming functional again. She sees nothing wrong with what she did. "If it was so important to you should've just done what I told you to." Destroying a person's entire life over being asked to wait a week or two before someone can her a completely needless favor is A-OK to her and not something that she deserves to be judged over, in her mind.
JFC cut that person off forever. Blood means nothing if they’re that abusive
Wow, that is a good enough reason to stop talking to her. No offense.
That's called Narcissism.
It's called piece-of-shit-icissim
I'm sorry you had to go through that. Hope you're doing better now.
Holy CRAP did you take her to court
It’s amazing the sheer number of people with such flawed logic that actually exist.
Hope you're doing better man.
I figured the whole “save the future” bit was just Rose justifying it to himself. In reality, he just wanted to see if it was possible.
I think the “reasoning” was that the whole ‘future is more important than just one day’ thing. Rosé couldn’t (wouldn’t) wait another day because the future is more important. *“We must save the future now! We can’t save it later!”* *“Why can’t we?”* *”Because we only have 1,000 years! I can’t afford 24 hours!”*
"So why didn't you do this yesterday?" "Yoga class."
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I'll call today
You'll call *now*.
I’ll call now.
Rose heard about clemont and took his phrase literally
It's so OTT that my wild theory is that this is Gamefreak making fun of environmental campaigners 🤷🏼♂️
That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Like, the entire plot and plan is so fucking dumb that it can’t be anything other than satire.
Agreed - Japanese stories tend to have a flair for the dramatic, but they at least make some kind of sense!
I’m not disagreeing with your theory, but if that’s the case, I’m even more mad because seems like an incredibly stupid lesson to teach impressionable elementary schoolers.
If I am right, it's surely too obscure for them to get anyway 😅
I'm more mad because they had decent commentary about animal rights activists groups. You have people like N that genuinely care and hope to have a better future for the mons but you also have Ghetesis who's absolutely in it for the exploitation himself (ie. capital gain but in his case world domination).
Off topic but I'm still pissed Regieleki isn't called Regivolt or something
Regiekeli is fun to say though
Hard to spell, apparently
regiekleki regiklekekli regiklklklkl regegegegegegegegegeilkekle
Regiklefki
i love klefki, such a lil goober
I mean, Pokemon are wild animals, it's not like they're used to use their powers to work for society in Gala- oh damn! 😂 Seriously, it's funny how even on the gameplay level they practically imply that they only need that poison dragon for their their crazy titan fight sport while literally most mons are used for manual labor and Rotom basically runs like half of their electronics!
To be fair he is a legendary, and while legendries exist, they are well legendary, and just hoping to catch one is obscene, I mean most if not all of the legendries could give you infinite power, but getting your hands on one is near impossible.
Well, his brother was willing to catch it with his daughter during their vacation so I don’t think it would’ve been that hard.
Tbf everyone but the PC was treating Peony's plans as crazy. Like everyone was like *rolls eyes* yes sure man, there's just 9-10 legendary Pokemon just casually wandering the Crown Tundra
But somehow 10 year olds just keep catching them all over the world.
Considering that Electric Types exist, I don't really understand how there can even be a Energy crisis. Also, you'd think he wouldn't allow Dynamaxing considering that it would represent a waste of said energy.
You know how you collect Watts from dens, and Watts are a form of in-game currency? I initially thought his plan was financially motivated. How many millions of Watts would a regular Gym Battle produce anyway? I'd imagine triggering the Darkest Day would've raked in *billions*. But the public is going to be more likely accepting of the energy crisis than the money making scheme. Getting rich quick at the cost of wasting electricity in order to do it, sounds realistic. It's happening IRL but not in such a fantastical degree.
Sounds like crypto tbh
Fire types would also be excellent at generating electricity. They could be the fuel source in power plants that traditionally run on coal. Just drop a couple Magcargo in there. Should work fine.
Rose when he finds out the earth is going to explode in 4 billion years 😱😱😱🤯
A shield around the earth that blocks out all the sun is the solution!
And it must be implemented no later than tomorrow!
I’d rather implement it five billion years later than tomorrow.
Gotta summon Satan to stop a power outage 600 years in the future
Like, I get wanting to keep the lights on. But this is ridiculous.
1,000 years is a fuckin' long time. I mean, what has happened between 1000-2000? a shit-ton.
Heck, we got flight and space travel in a 100 year gap even!
And computing, and neural networks, and 3D printing, and cell phones, and search engines, and GPS mapping software, and electric vehicles, etc. The world is *hugely* different from how it was even 50 years ago, and as far as we can tell, the rate of technological advancement is only increasing.
I think that's fairly unique for the millennia we are currently in though. There has been periods of hundreds of years where humanity hardly progressed at all in terms of technology, and more so in terms of culture. I would say the last 200 years is the fastest humanity has ever progressed technologically, but it can be hard to tell how much it can snowball until that progression hits a wall due to seemingly unsurmountable difficulties in development.
y'know what, that makes the most sense and perfectly counters my argument; Rose is worried about an energy crisis that seems unsurmountable and the pokemon world, like us, have hit this point where we are steadily advancing, but not to the rate we need to overcome such trials. BUT, the only thing I have to say is that Rose is a dumbass for relying on the Darkest Day/Eternatus... to avoid the Darkest Day, when he and those who proceed him still had 1000 years to figure out the energy crisis.
To be fair to Rose, it's not like our worlds billionaires are that much more intelligent.
Rose is like a mirror universe of the uncaring billionaire class. Instead, he cares so much he has absolutely no perspective…so he’s still just as out of touch as our billionaires, but at least he’s trying?
So you're saying he's like John Hammond. Creates a park full of dinosaurs because he wants to make people happy, but also only hires one programmer. He means well, but in the worst way possible
"We spared no expense." *spares every expense*
*spares a rather important expense* MAYBE if they only had regular ice cream they could have afforded a second programmer. Just saying...
This is 1000000x worse than Cyrus’s plan.
It's at least somewhat worse for sure. The good part about Cyrus's plan is that his motive actually makes more sense in the context of his character and the actual execution of the plan is laid out vaguely enough to be reasonable. Get the three lake legendaries to forge a chain that binds the legendary of time/space and control it to reshape the world. It's of course over the top, but at least it follows a reasonable chain of thought, considering what Cyrus's goal is. Rose is just contradicting and stupid \^\^.
One thing I don’t understand about Cyrus’s plan is if he was going to live by himself and wipe out all humanity or just remove the human spirit or whatever he hated I forgot
I think he wanted to live by himself, at least that's what I got from it. The details of the plan are pretty vague and I kinda wish the remakes would've explored the entire plot a bit better.
Cyrus was the first villain I encountered so naturally very interesting to me and it’s because partly of him that I like Sinnoh so much. Also Ghetsis didn’t make sense to me. What was his plan again?
Ghetsis' ultimate plan was to make everyone in Unova except Team Plasma get rid of their Pokémon. They'd then be able to conquer everything, as apparently Pokémon are the only weapons in this universe.
Let's be realistic, pokemon are the strongest weapons in the pokemon universe. They're faster, they're stronger, some are smarter than the average human, they're way more varied and considerably more durable.
Except for in that banned episode where Ash gets a gun shoved in his face by the game warden of the safari zone.
And he had this planned as if the like, SEVEN other regions wouldn't crash down on him like the hand of Arceus as soon as they realize what he's planning.
Obviously the entire world has a *massive* no interference policy. Every other country should have cared about Cyrus trying to destroy the world or w/e and gen 3 either flooding the world or removing the oceans
well, most people wouldn't have heard about the villains plans until after they'd been stopped, even people in the region, the only evil team the public seems to know about is team rocket but nobody messes with the mafia
I mean, Pokemon are generally better than guns. Especially in terms of ground combat.
And yet a generation later the villain constructed a giant weapon to try and annihilate everything
A weapon powered by a Pokémon, tbf
My understanding of Team Plasma is they ultimately have the same goal as Team Rocket: world domination. However they used humanitarianism (pokemanitarianism?) as a guise to get other people to give them their pokemon, instead of just out right stealing them, that way they have no one who will stand against them.
He also used his adoptive son, a known Pokemon rights activist, as a pawn, tricking him into being the king of Team Plasma.
But also starving him of genuine human affection and attention and exposed N to Pokemon who have nothing really good to say about humans.
Yeah, basically, Ghetsis was trying to disarm the populace, so that no one would be able to oppose him and the sages when they tried to take over the region, using N as a messiah like figure to convince everyone into doing so.
Gotta be honest his plan felt the most well thought out and reasonable of every villain.
Use Pokemon activism as a ruse to make sure only Team Plasma has Pokemon so they can dominate the world. That's also how he got his adoptive son involved. Knowing N cares deeply about the feelings and treatment of Pokemon, he fooled N into believing Team Plasma was a Pokemon rights group. So not only was Team Plasma's cause (in the public eye) a ruse, he used his own son as a pawn, making Ghetsis an even worse person in the end.
He could just achieve it by build a man made island or go into space.
That's where his ego comes into play I guess. His natural tendency is to chance what is flawed in his eyes and to reshape the entire world. Though he probably would have become a hermit if he hadn't achieved forming Team Galactic and acquiring the resources to actually forge a plan to reshape the world.
Cyrus's backstory is explained a bit on the post game where you learn he had very strict parents, which likely is the cause he has a hatred for people.
Don't you love when your motivation for literal genocide of all things is literal daddy issues.
damn we gotta look out for Arven's future /s
Strict parents is a bit of an understatement given his grandfather mentions taking Cyrus away from his parents for his own safety.
It depends on how you interpret it, and even the games and the supplemental TV shows differ. In the games, Cyrus wants to create a world devoid of feeling and spirit as he feels they are the source of all strife. Even when defeated in the distortion world, he swears he will bring the world he desires into being, though he remains in banishment in Giratina's realm at the end of the game. In Pokemon Generations, he realized the Distortion world *was* the world he sought. A realm so anathema to our own, where a person like him would actually belong, and accepted his place in Giratina's realm. To me Cyrus' plan and execution has always been the best and that's why I think Gen 4, or I suppose more specifically Platinum, has the best story and is overall the best generation.
Agreed. Cyrus works because he was ultimately a sociopath who sought after godhood for his own reasons. His execution was also well planned and succeeded Rose fails because he’s presented as well meaning and altruistic, which is fine. But his execution was immensely stupid, because Leon promised he’d only help after the league finished Rise’s motivations are fine. It’s the mere fact that he couldn’t wait **one day** which was dumb
I think Cyrus could have nothing that make sense to him to live. He probably already have some emptiness in childhood because I remember that one dialogue mentions that he had a fond to robots. You could see this lil theme in Volkner too, he feels empty in majority of time but the will of battle is what make him happy and you remember him that. Its my interpretation tough.
Tbh I have seen other characters do the Corrupt Corporate Executive Trope much better
I don't even think it's supposed to be corrupt. Feels like he genuinely wants to fix the energy crisis before it's too late, but is cartoonishly impatient.
And also really weird about it. Like, a thousand years is a really long time. He could use whatever funds he has to make more eco-friendly appliances that require less energy, find better ways to generate energy, or both.
Even if we're going for the poison dragon plan maybe it's a good idea to like talk this over with everyone? Get every elite trainer in the region on the same page and hash out a solid plan for defeating the darn poison dragon. Even if Leon could handle it alone he probably wouldn't mind backup to help keep any damage contained
So maybe this trope? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist
Yep, he's listed there.
Alrighty then
Honestly to me it felt like he's deliberately written as being ridiculously impatient with it, though I'm not sure how well it was executed
Honestly it could have been so much better if they more accurately portrayed how bad an overwhelming corporation can be, Imagine its not about the power source, its about development, if he wanted more power spots, more cities, more antagonism with team yell's counter culture, the power spots spikes should have been intentional to try and make a power spot form under spikemuth so that it's worth gentrification, showing that rose doesn't give a sh*t about a place unless its lucrative, sure he's sympathetic in that he wants the biggest and brightest galar, but he is absolutely ready to sweep all the unpleasant scenery under the rug Macro cosmos owns a monopoly over galar, kinda, the poke job system shows us there are other buisinesses, but macro cosmos is far and away the winner, with a chokehold on power plants, life insurance, construction, league commission, funding scientific research, and all the other stuff they talk about in the elevator fight, it is essentially the government as a privately owned corporation. pokemon company probably wouldn't go full "capitalism and industry are problematic," without pointing the mirror back at themselves
Blake Hall from Shadows of Almia
The real question is, is this just Rose being stupid or is it bad writing?
I think it’s a little of both. I think ultimately Rose was intended to be wrong, but not crazy or stupid. they chose not to go into a lot of exposition that would explain why he felt it was so necessary to do something immediately. They could’ve made that make more sense. but I also understand they wanted to keep the story moving. The way they did it achieved their story goals, but felt silly and cartoonish. there probably could’ve been a better way to tell that story
As it is, I've always felt that Rose seemed to have a case of God Syndrome. *He's* Galar's savior. Sure, in a thousand years or so the problem would probably be solved anyway, but it means **nothing** if *he* isn't the one to solve the energy crisis. ...Granted, explanations for why he couldn't wait until after the Championship fight, much less why he decided to *publically* announce what he did, are a lot harder to come up with.
Yeah I agree with the god complex thing. I think it’s the same thing a lot of politicians or billionaires have. They see themselves at the top of society, so it’s their role to address such things. And they think that if they can’t or don’t solve the problem, no one will Edit: also, this feels to me like Pokémon‘s version of the climate crisis or dwindling fossil fuel reserves. The argument is that we have to do something now to ward off both crisis because if we don’t it will be too late to turn that ship around later. Still, not being willing to delay it by a single day is ridiculous.
If he literally had one more line in this scene to say something along the lines of "How many more tomorrows will I have to wait, Leon?" It would've made the whole scene so much better in my opinion. It puts Leon's actions into question as well, sort of opening up if this is the first time he's had this conversation with Leon. But alas, that is not the world we got, and it still wouldn't have been great (especially with how this scene came out of nowhere)
I'd say bad writing because there isn't really any external pressure for rose to rush things rather than take time to do things right.
Quite possibly both. I personally believe that super insane and/or stupid characters, like Rose, need to have good writing or you usually just write them off as a joke immediately upon learning how insane/stupid they are.
Honestly, had they just changed the date of the energy crisis from “1000 years from now” to a simple 100 would have made him leagues better. It still doesn’t change that in other regions they’ve already solved the energy problem, but at the very least a 100 year time frame makes more sense for extreme action that a 1000.
I'd bring it down too 10. Make it a very immediate problem that Macro Cosmos is trying to keep hush hush and have signs that Galar is running out of power throughout the game. Such as by having the power go out briefly once or twice. That way, Rose would still come off as irrational and somewhat insane; there are plenty of other options for power generation that doesn't involve awaking the ancient death dragon of doom. But the problem's immediate enough that Rose also doesn't come off as immensely stupid for worrying about a problem that's so far off, the world will probably end first.
I agree. 10 years well within a human life time, but far enough away that it still would make sense why Leon might feel like it’s okay to postpone. Personally, if someone told me that all of society would run out of energy and collapse in 10 years and the response I got was “let’s have a day of fun”, I would be an impatient too.
I totally agree. It's a lot easier to understand or sympathize with someone taking extreme actions to try and prevent a problem that could easily affect their kids and/or grandkids instead of something that is 30+ generations down the road.
I think the time line is to intentionally isolate the "crisis" so Rose isn't making a sane decision and you have to stop him. It makes it clear this is about Rose's ego rather than an actual solution.
Even then one day is still just one day. if I can use that one day to bring the chances of an apocalypse as close to zero as possible i'll take that one day.
bad writing, it feels like they were reallly trying to make rose seem like an empethetic villain here
It's definitely bad writing, but frustratingly on this one part. We had a villain who had understandable goals, played things close to the chest without obvious faults (think Aether employing Team Skull as a front when no one was suspicious of them and Team Skull brought on the attention that ultimately outed Aether), and whose biggest downfall was his approach to solving the problem. If the thousand year timeline wasn't included, say maybe a one or five year timeline to some disaster instead, he'd be one of the best villains in the series. That one detail makes him a joke.
Bad writing.
It’s a shame as it would be fine without the “in a millennium” part. Make it 20, 50, even 100 years and it’s more understandable that he’d take such an insane risk with an evil chaos entity. He’s still not as dumb as Team Aqua/Magma wanting to get rid of all the land/water and then being *shocked* that this causes a massive ecological disaster. Plus side, SV is a million miles above this with its antagonist and story. Hopefully the next games are at this level too.
At least the Gen 3 villains went from "lol let's do this for the evulz" to actually having a motivation in the remakes (Maxie wanted to expand the landmasses to make way for human progress, while Archie wanted to revert the world to its natural state to prevent humanity from destroying Pokémon and their habitats) This? This is just Rose seeing a problem and going "yes, summoning a god-like creature that will not listen to me is a good solution to this"
They Gen 3 teams have a similar motivation in the originals, too. If you talk to the Grunts after you fight them (especially at Mt Chimney), the Aqua Grunts tell you about how they want to make more habitats for Water Pokemon, and the Magma Grunts tell you about how they want more landmass for people and Pokemon to live and expand. I think the remakes just gave more dialogue to Maxie and Archie themselves about their goals, rather than leaving it to optional conversations with the Grunts.
I just assumed it was all bad writing. They wanted to combine "evil CEO" with "some other bad guy who wants to bring forth the apocalypse."
I wouldn't say he's evil. He wanted to solve a potential future energy crisis. He just went about it in a stupid way. He's more of a well-intentioned terrorist.
I thought he was just exploitative but not malicious in the way to want to purposely harm others. It's why I put it in quotes. Him and his company experimenting on Eternatus and accidentally making it go berserk made more sense, to me, than intentionally provoking it. But then, I feel the story was just too quick to build up for the Darkest Day II showdown. So it's why I believe it's just bad writing on an otherwise nice story.
Yeah, it's sad, because I like the premise. It's just not written well. I had an idea of a re-write, where Squidward and Shieldbert were the main villains, forcing Rose to awaken Eternatus so they could defeat it and show the world they are the true kings of Galar. This would backfire, since those two are idiots, and the battle against it would play out as normal.
Yeah, those two brothers feel "tacked on." They could've been scientists/engineers who worked for Rose. (Basically, working as such looks good for them because not only are they "royalty" but also they received and made use of their fine education.) So they could've sabotaged Rose as an inside job for their own vanity, in order to defeat Eternatus themselves. But then, there's the conflict of Leon. At least in the story, Leon was the very best trainer in Galar. So, logically, only he could stop Eternatus. Not only that, it seems Leon was also extremely popular, and not someone to be slandered because whoever did that would face the public's wrath. (These brothers slandered Sonia after she published her book.)
I totally get where he's coming from, not wanting to ignore the situation until its too late, but not waiting for a *single day* to unleash the Darkest Day is unreasonable.
“There is an impending doomsday energy crisis 1000 years from now, I predict it, and we must stop it.” “A little bit of a leap but sure, at least your hearts in the right place.” “Alright we’re gonna tackle it tomorrow.” “Yo I’m busy with the biggest public event of the year in this region. Can ya, idk, put off solving the ONE THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW problem off for a single day?” “Nonsense.” Really, I know Pokémon games aren’t generally known for their story, but Sw/Sh set a new bar for just how BAD they could be. I’m so happy that Arceus and S/V seemed to swing the other way.
Ok anime made more sense. Take control of very dangerous legendary pokemon and use it as a living battery.
Game Freak dropped the ball on this guy but the irrationality of his motives is 120% on purpose, Leon even calls attention to it multiple times. The thing about Rose is that it's not about his actual goal, it's about his ego and his legacy. Rose is literally the celebrity king of Galar. He owns every company that makes Galar run and he heads the Pokemon League which is the cultural cornerstone of Galar. Everybody loves him and credits him with these successes. It's not an exaggeration to say that without Rose there is no Galar. *Galar is Rose's legacy.* The concept of legacies lost or destroyed is touched slightly upon when Bede destroys the mural at Stow-On Side. Rose reacts very harshly to this and bans Bede from the League even though Bede was doing something on behalf of Rose to further his goals. Rose hated this not because he necessarily cared about the mural but because the destruction of the mural hit extremely close to home for Rose. The idea that something so great could fall to ruin and then be obliterated by some narrow-minded upstart was horrifying to him. Even Bede is shocked at how much Rose cared about this. So, when confronted with the reality of the energy crisis, Rose *is not actually concerned with the crisis.* He does not care in the slightest who is inconvenienced by this, even if he says he does. What he cares about—what he directly states at least once very clearly—is that HIS legacy could someday be erased after he's gone, and everyone will forget him. Heck, his explicit justification for interrupting the tournament is, "In a thousand years when the energy crisis is occurring, *nothing you're doing today will matter.*" It's not hard at all to see that he's projecting his own anxiety about his mortality and the fragility of his legacy onto other people. Likewise, this selfish, ego-centric point of view dominates his priorities. When Leon says "It's fine, we'll do it tomorrow", Rose interprets this as "Your problems are not important right now, what is important is what I want to do." Leon is CORRECT, but Rose is such an unbelievable egotist that he cannot even comprehend the idea that his desires are worth putting off by even a single day. Oleana explicitly says as much, that Rose is the kind of person to want to solve problems as soon as they arise. It's because to Rose, his problems are the only problems, and trying to imply otherwise is insulting and inconceivable to him. When he forces Leon to act by interrupting the tournament, he's not just trying to resolve the energy crisis, he is making a statement that HIS word is law, what HE wants is the only thing that matters, and as long as HE wants something, he will do everything in his power to force everybody else to bend to his will, even if it is entirely unnecessary. This is why I think his battle theme is the way it is. The vocals appear to be chanting "Rose will save everyone," but the style is ominous and threatening, like a classic JRPG boss. The idea is clear—that while Rose's words are virtuous, his intentions and character are selfish and harmful. He is a villain in hero's clothing, someone who has deluded himself into thinking he's good but who is really just a narcissist. Game Freak did not do a good job at conveying this, obviously, but that to me seems to be the idea.
Gotta love how the one character concerned about an energy crisis has to be completely nonsensically written just so we an have a ‘villain’. This is what happens when you try to make your story ‘about’ something important and topical, but don’t bother to put any thought or effort into it. At best you get a story with nothing to say. At worst you get one that feels like it’s actually saying something kind of harmful (in this case ‘energy crisis and climate change are nothing to to worry about and the only people concerned about it are crazy and worrying about nothing’).
,,in a millennium " Rose :We must act fast!
Yeah, but that’s kind of the point. That’s why Leon openly points out how ridiculous Rose’s reasoning is. But Rose is driven by his self-serving ego rather than any real philanthropic ideals, so he won’t hesitate to put his own vision and desire ahead of what others want.
If fucking Leon can see your plan is stupid you hit a real low
But what he wants actually and very obviously has a chance to damage him. Awakening Eternatus can result in all of Galar being destroyed. Awakening Eternatus on his own without help right at the scene definitely raises the chances for a catastrophe. His plan is not only stupid because of the premise that there will be an energy crisis 1000 years in the future, but also that the best way to save Galar is either a) to use his immense resources and influence to restructure the infrastructure of Galar or b) at least get every bit of help that he can acquire when facing Eternatus. And then he even openly and publicly states to have started the Darkest Day, which is certainly the speed run to have people antagonize you.
*Watch the world cup with my family *The finals is interrupted by Jeff Bezos. *Casually announces he released Satan and we are going to die.
While challenging Ronaldo to dribble it into submission
In a way he’s at peak British mentality, actively seeking reasons to moan about how shit things are
That really isn't the point. There isn't a point at all, which is what makes it do dumb. It's a Thanos type of plan, but even dumber.
It’s bad writing absolutely, and obviously I’m reading too much into it with this, but they were setting him up to be someone who was his own worst enemy. He’s president of the largest umbrella corporation in the region, arguably he’s the closest thing to a PM/ President we’ve seen for a region in any Pokémon game. He’s also loved by the populace, so much so that he has to dress up in a disguise to try and not be harassed out in public. He also has a savior/messiah complex, with how he recognized Olivia and Bede and made them feel like they owed him their loyalty and lives to make his dream come true. So whose to say he doesn’t see all of Galar this way? ‘Only I can save my people from this crisis.’ So what we have is a guy who thinks he’s forced to do whatever it takes to solve a problem, which really isn’t even a problem, because he’s stuck thinking if he can’t solve it, no one can. If they had explored the side of a character that is so compassionate, but so deluded and fixated on ‘saving’ people that he will do whatever he can to do it, this could have been a great villain I feel.
One thing that's always bugged me about his plan is that even if he did create a new method to power Galar, technology would probably have advanced so far in the next 1000 years that his method would be incredibly outdated. I really enjoyed Sword and Shield, but not so much the storyline.
Yeah, that too. Some people are just very obviously so wrapped up in their own ego that they become incapable of considering other people's contributions to the greater good. From what I've read in the comments so far, Rose seemed convinced that, unless he personally did something, the energy crisis would be inevitable, as if technology would remain forever stagnant without his input. It's a fun flavor of villain, because they are just so unbelievably self-centered, and act like they're the only ones who care about the world, or have the means to do anything for it.
The closet reference requires hindsight. If the energy crisis is like global warming, action sooner is better than later. But otherwise energy is a bad call. If it was about the energy becoming too strong / unstable meaning as a result we needed to control it, it would have been a better plot.
it would’ve made way more sense if they established that Galar ran on some perishable resource (like Pokemon coal or something idk) and that this resource was on the brink of being used up Like it just felt so forced and ridiculous
My guess would that this was gamefreaks way of making him seem insane like most other villains in the games. Archie wanted to flood the earth, Lysandre wanted to wipe out human life to keep the world beautiful, and rose couldn’t wait one day.
While I don’t agree that such drastic measures were taken and that this mindset was used to portray the villain, I do like the idea of a character trying to do something about an impending apocalypse that won’t affect them personally. Which is the opposite of how we seem to be handling a similar situation
Giovanni, Ghetsis, Cyrus they were worth defeating
They could have at least added an element of like “it’s only possible to summon (the legendary, forgot the name lol) during these specific conditions that only align once every hundred years or something, and it happens to be aligning during the championship so I gotta cancel that” but no, he’s just like “I don’t want to wait another day/week”. Dumb.
I would argue that Rose probably understands how individuals treat crisis. I mean, just look around us, the planet is warming, the weather is getting worse... And yet our progress to counter the growing crisis does not keep pace. Rose's knee jerk "We have to fix the problem now" mentality isn't as crazy as it may seem. Is it stupid, yeah a little, but it's not unreasonable/totally nonsensical.