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If Guzma had been the main villain...

I was honestly surprised at how little they used Plumeria as well, in the demo they seemed to be building up her character a bit as she appears in it and has a decently memorable moment. Then we get to the games and she feels almost completely thrown in there as she barely interacts with her team (especially Guzma) despite the whole "stop messing with my siblings!" thing, we get very little on her backstory compared to the rest of the Team (even the grunts), her first battle (and thus, impression within the game) lacks connection to the Team's activities at the time and it's immediately followed by Olivia who had much more plot relevance at the time so she got overshadowed, and she pretty much disappears after Lillie's kidnapping and they barely (if ever) explain why she wasn't there at the Aether Foundation. She does feel like a step up above the Scientist since at least she has more of a character, but she still lacked presence like them as the story doesn't do too much with her, and it's pretty disappointing as what we do get of her does imply she had something to contribute to it if she was given that time and focus.
 
It would seem that Plumeria is on at least somewhat familiar terms with Molayne and Nanu, since she says that they talked her into taking on the Pokémon League and even gave her a Z-Ring so that she could start over as a proper Trainer. I do wonder about her relationship to Guzma, though. In the post-game, you can find her in one of the trailers on Route 13, and she refers to him as an idiot. Did she always feel that way?

Furthermore, I can't help but notice that her collection of make-up kits and Pokémon dolls gives her a curious bit of commonality with Lillie, of all people.
 
If Guzma was the villain, I think Team Skull would be removed entirely from his part of the storyline. (whether it would continue on under Plumeria's rule or someone else entirely is another matter) The Ultra Beasts and Ultra Space are kind of the central conflict, so it'd make sense to continue that. I think Guzma, as a trial reject, would try to be the best in another area, this time a scientific one (perhaps trying to best Professor Burnet in dimensional research), and discover the Ultra Wormholes. Given his theme as the "big bug boss", it's not a stretch to think (Of course, the significance with Lillie is pretty lost with this-and Guzma doesn't have any relations, so it's pretty hard to find a replacement.)

The main reason I think this would be the case is because of his name origin-Guzmania, a type of plant. Sun and Moon has actually given us four new scientists with plant-based names-Kukui, Lusamine, Faba, and Wicke are all named after various kinds of plants. (Interesting, the scientists belonging to the Aether Foundation all have names that use the German name in their Japanese name) While I don't think they could all easily fit each others roles, I do think that it's meant to signify that Guzma could have had the same scientific skill that they had. (I think it's intended more as a contrast to Kukui, but it suits this plotline, too)

Of course, just "what-ifs" could technically go anywhere-since it's all hypothetical, you could make any number of little or big changes.
 
I actually wanted Guzma to be the villain... and for him to cause the release of the Ultra Beasts accidentally through disrupting the trials.

Then again, I kinda also wanted to redeem Team Skull. Maybe have it that while they're terrible at crime, they're actually pretty good at coming together to fight UBs?
 
It would've been a lot more predictable and boring. I mean yeah, we all saw it coming that Lusamine is the villain, but at least that's a legitimate plot twist that the story doesn't really hint strongly at. If Guzma was the villain they'd have to come up with some other type of plot twist to make the plot interesting.
 
It would've been a lot more predictable and boring. I mean yeah, we all saw it coming that Lusamine is the villain, but at least that's a legitimate plot twist that the story doesn't really hint strongly at. If Guzma was the villain they'd have to come up with some other type of plot twist to make the plot interesting.
implying that plot twists make the plot interesting? SM's plot is one massive forced plot twist and it's a mess of a story to make that twist even feel remotely shocking (let alone the fact that GameFreak seemed to feel so keen on setting up twist Jenga).
 
implying that plot twists make the plot interesting? SM's plot is one massive forced plot twist and it's a mess of a story to make that twist even feel remotely shocking (let alone the fact that GameFreak seemed to feel so keen on setting up twist Jenga).
At what point was it a plot twist? The game literally started with Lillie running away from Aether paradise.
 
Before I played the games, I guessed that maybe the plot would be something similar to Magma vs Aqua situation where the Aether Foundation was also another group of bad guys trying to stop the gangsters from ruining their plans of world domination or something. I thought Lusamine might be some rich sponsor of some sorts - which turned out to be half-right. What I didn't expect was her being the ultimate mastermind. I thought Guzma would go berserk-mode at some point, but instead she did.

Anyways, if Guzma was the main villain... it certainly would have been predictable and boring, but then I guess we would have been dealing with a badass gangster boss, not a psychopathic mother...
 
I would like it. It would mean that President Lusamine wouldn't have been a villain which is something I'd like for my dear President.
 
If Guzma had been the main villain, I might have enjoyed Sun and Moon's story a little more. I'm not pleased with Aether's turnaround.

Really, I'd say "good person actually being bad" is an even worse and predictable cliche than "dark is evil". It would have been more interesting for Lusamine to defy our expectations and not go villain on us.
You may be right but I rather have my first lead female villain , than a charecter that defies expectations.
 
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