Lillie, Lusamine, Ultra Beasts, Doppelgangers (Spoilers abound)

[Ereshkigal]

Continued from here.

Again, the symmetry is meant to be between Nihilego and Lusamine's children, not Nihilego and Lusamine's entire sphere of influence. She doesn't dress the Foundation members like it for the simple reason that it's not what the story is intending for her character to do.

And yet, there still remains more symmetry between Lillie's outfit and what the rest of the Aether Foundation wears than between Lillie's outfit and the Nihilego.

She didn't "take the first opportunity," though. She was in Ultra Space for quite a while before we showed up, and didn't merge with it until she decided to battle us. It was a power move.

She had also just caught the thing when we encounter her. By the time we get there, it's already possessed and left Guzma and she already has it in a Beast Ball. It literally was her first opportunity after catching the Pokemon.

There's no indication one way or the other as to how she dressed Gladion, so you can't say that she didn't dress him like Nihilego any more than you can say she did.

I can say it because no one comments on it. A quirk like that would draw commentary, especially for a game made in Japan.

Frankly, I never much got the sense that she had any particular feelings toward the other Foundation members. The story doesn't explore that area at all.

I got about the same sense of feeling with her interactions towards her own children.

Um... yeah? That's kinda the whole point... Gladion ran away, and then Lillie ran away, which Lusamine, in the midst of her warped grief-turned-obsession, perceived as being rejected by them. As she sees it, they decided they didn't need her anymore, so she feels she no longer needs them. Mohn is gone, her kids ran away from her, and all she has left is her obsession with the Ultra Beasts.

> Lusamine: My... You do say such incomprehensible things. Calling me mother? I don't have any children! Certainly not any wretched children who would run off and reject my love!

> Lusamine: Maybe if you really had been a daughter to me, I would have listened to you... Too bad.

> Lusamine: The daughter who stole my Cosmog from me and the son who took my Type: Null! All I ever did was give you two all the love I had, and all you did was betray me! You have no right to ask for my attention now!

Which explains nothing about the distance she had towards them before. And considering how Lillie almost got caught, it's very doubtful Lillie was sneaky enough to pull off stealing Cosmog without someone who knows her well noticing something was at least off. Overall, Lusamine didn't care enough about her daughter while the girl was still there to even notice.

It didn't possess Mohn... There's no suggestion that Nihilego or any other UBs appeared when Mohn opened a wormhole to Ultra Space, or that Lusamine was even present at that moment. Mohn didn't get possessed, he tried to open a wormhole, but the experiment went south and he fell in, leaving behind Cosmog and his research papers about Nihilego. Some time later, he popped out on Poké Pelago with no memory of who he was.

How can he research a creature enough to know how it acts and what it looks like if he's never seen it? It is through his research that they first become aware of it, after all.

In effect, all this argues is that Lusamine had no basis for dressing Lillie to look like Nihilego, since she has no realistic reason to even know what the Pokemon looks like.

Mimicking people from a different dimension with whom those UBs have never come into contact? (And why would they do this? Why would four Pheromosa decide to style themselves after Lusamine, or two Xurkitree style themselves after Guzma, or an entire horde of Nihilego style themselves after Lillie? And why only those three species of UB? Moreover, how? Only Nihilego is said to have shapeshifting capabilities.)

That's just it: You're assuming they all have absolutely no way of knowing what these people look like, despite the fact Mohn spent an unknown amount of time with them and one of them is confirmed as being capable of possessing people. We don't even truly know the details of how Mohn got all of his information about Nihilego, but the amount he did know does suggest the experiment where he fell in the portal was far from the first.

The other problem is that we have no information about how Ultra Space works, and most of the Ultra Beasts were completely unknown prior to the events of Sun and Moon. Except that the only native we see in it is capable of shapeshifting while there. So it might possibly be an inherent aspect of native life to Ultra Space.

I hope they do Pokemon Stars and expand both on the capabilities of the Ultra Beasts and the research that Mohn did. We have too much missing information.

 

[Esserise]

And yet, there still remains more symmetry between Lillie's outfit and what the rest of the Aether Foundation wears than between Lillie's outfit and the Nihilego.

Just that they're all white, really.

She had also just caught the thing when we encounter her. By the time we get there, it's already possessed and left Guzma and she already has it in a Beast Ball. It literally was her first opportunity after catching the Pokemon.

Lusamine went into Ultra Space before we even got to Poni Island. We spent at least one day at Aether Paradise after the wormhole incident. Add that onto the amount of time it would have taken to sail to Poni, then to Exeggutor, and then to trek to the altar - what makes you think that she waited, in all that time, until precisely the moment before we arrived to catch Nihilego? Doing that would take a few minutes at most.

I can say it because no one comments on it. A quirk like that would draw commentary, especially for a game made in Japan.

We know that Lusamine picked Lillie's clothes, which resemble Nihilego. We know she picked Gladion's clothes. As far as we know, she did not express any particular preference for the Foundation employees' outfits. You're assuming that there was intent behind the employee's outfits, but there's not said to be one, whereas we have expressed proof of her being particular about her children's clothing.

I was being fair in saying that there's no indication one way or the other as to how she dressed Gladion, but honestly, I think it stands to reason that she dressed him like Nihilego as well.

I got about the same sense of feeling with her interactions towards her own children.

No way. Nobody who doesn't care about their kids has such a passionately inflamed reaction to what she perceives as their betrayal.

Which explains nothing about the distance she had towards them before.

If she was distanced toward them before, it's because she was growing increasingly obsessed with Ultra Space and therefore less sensitive toward the needs of her kids. She lost Mohn, which caused her to grieve, which she failed to manage in a healthy way. She started becoming obsessed, and then started projecting that obsession onto her kids. Then, two years ago, Gladion ran away out of sympathy for Type: Null. That's when Lusamine got "really bad" according to Lillie. Bad to the point that Lillie had to seek out protection and counseling from Wicke ("If I hadn't had Wicke with me...").

Lusamine didn't stop caring about Lillie per se. She just became extremely warped to the point where her obsession with Nihilego eclipsed her view of Lillie. So she tried to squeeze Lillie into the mold of her obsession, and if Lillie wouldn't comply, it frustrated Lusamine.

And considering how Lillie almost got caught, it's very doubtful Lillie was sneaky enough to pull off stealing Cosmog without someone who knows her well noticing something was at least off. Overall, Lusamine didn't care enough about her daughter while the girl was still there to even notice.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here.

How can he research a creature enough to know how it acts and what it looks like if he's never seen it? It is through his research that they first become aware of it, after all.

In effect, all this argues is that Lusamine had no basis for dressing Lillie to look like Nihilego, since she has no realistic reason to even know what the Pokemon looks like.

He doesn't have to have seen it himself. We know that it has appeared in Alola's past. Wicke tells us that. We know that there are legends about the appearance of the fearsome UBs, so, obviously people in the ancient past had to have witnessed them. You think they didn't scribble down a description or draw on a cave wall or something? And in researching the UBs, there is little doubt that Mohn would have come across this information.

That's just it: You're assuming they all have absolutely no way of knowing what these people look like, despite the fact Mohn spent an unknown amount of time with them and one of them is confirmed as being capable of possessing people. We don't even truly know the details of how Mohn got all of his information about Nihilego, but the amount he did know does suggest the experiment where he fell in the portal was far from the first.

This is the sum of what's said about Mohn:

> Gladion: My mother's desires to reach Nihilego...and what she did in order to achieve that goal...I know she was completely out of control. But that doesn't mean I can't understand it. It was my father that started it. He was the one who first confirmed the existence of Ultra Wormholes and Ultra Beasts. But my father...He disappeared during an experiment. Trying to connect to an Ultra Wormhole. All that was left behind was a weakened Cosmog and his papers about Nihilego...Lusamine's obsession with Ultra Wormholes...and her obsession with the Ultra Beasts...I think it was all basically her way of trying to reach him again. That's what I had to believe. To get through it.

> NPC: There was a man named Mohn, who years ago published his theory about the Ultra Wormholes.

> Aether Report: Ultra Wormholes Beyond the Ultra Wormholes that Professor Mohn discovered lies a different dimension. By investigating the changes in mass there, we can predict the existence of Pokémon-like life. We have dubbed them Ultra Beasts for now.

What I took this all to mean, especially from the last entry, was that the UBs weren't discovered in modern times by anybody actually visiting Ultra Space first-hand. Mohn spend a week living in Ultra Space like it was some kind of vacation to Cancún and teach them what his wife and some random unrelated thug looked like. Instead, the existence of Ultra Space was formally confirmed by measuring the detectable changes in mass around it. I think this is meant to be similar to how scientists determine details about extrasolar planets, which they obviously can't measure directly, so instead, they look at how the planet affects and orbits its star, and at how it interacts with the light coming from the star. Human technology in the Pokémon world is more advanced than that, though, as they clearly have ways of analyzing the properties of not just space, but other dimensions as well (hence the Dimensional Research Lab).

That's why they predict the existence of Pokémon-like life. The changes in mass suggest that there are living beings there which are similar to Pokémon. But they didn't actually breach the dimension until Mohn's experiment, in which he fell into the wormhole.

 

[godiego]

i honestly think both are reasonably possible given how....incomplete....SM's story is. in a series where designers aren't above making characters appear like Pokemon, Lillie's resemblance to Nihilego is notable. given that we have that bit about Lillie being dressed by her, it's not unreasonable to think that Lillie was made to look like Nihilego. then again, is this because pre-release information had a bit that may have alluded to that or a true bonafide resemblance? we don't know. this resemblance isn't addressed in the game. and of course that doesn't even deal with the fact that Lusamine probably didn't run into a Nihilego until the first event at Aether Paradise (that we know of, at least). so if Lillie was dressed like Nihilego by Lusamine, how would she have known?

just like the obsession vs. possession hole, i think it could easily be either and the game just refuses to take a side.

 

[Silktree]

Mohn left some information on Nihilego before he disappeared. A sketch wouldn't have been impossible.

 

[Esserise]

just like the obsession vs. possession hole, i think it could easily be either and the game just refuses to take a side.

I think this is a subtly different issue. Now, obviously I'm biased since I've made my opinions on this subject very clear elsewhere, but the point I'll be making has less to do with my specific side of the argument and more to do with the narrative structure and presentation in general.

This particular debate has only arisen because SM aren't very good with exposition. In the absolute simplest terms, the game never intentionally raises "Was she just obsessed or was she possessed all along?" as a topic of debate. The game never invites us to contemplate the scenario in those terms. Because of that, I don't think it's that the game "refuses to take a side" - I think it's more likely that the game never intended for there to be "sides" to begin with. There's no technical obstacle preventing the game from entertaining such a debate or from simply explaining things outright. It could do that if that were the intention. But what the game shows and tells us is that Lusamine was obsessed with Nihilego. It never goes that extra step into saying that she was brainwashed by it for years, or that she ever had personal contact with it prior to the game's Act II. The idea that her behavior was always being influenced by Nihilego from behind the curtain is an extrapolation that fans made based on the description of Nihilego's functions. Certainly, it is an extrapolation that can be argued fairly and does have synergy with with a number of details (though it conflicts with some others that I think are important, but that's me getting off-topic). However, you have to do more to connect the dots in order to get there, whereas Gladion spells out the obsession part of things for us directly. The fact that her behavior was borne of obsession that grew from her loss of Mohn is something the game definitely wants us to know. The possibility that her behavior was being secretly exaggerated by a Nihilego that she met offscreen through some undisclosed methods is something that, you know, I guess is maybe plausible if you read the dialogue a certain way.

Sort of like the "The UBs destroyed the Gens 3-5 games!" theory. There were definitely at least two Ultra Wormholes in the old universe. But does that mean the UBs utterly wiped out that Earth? If you read into certain details you can come to that conclusion, but taking the "spirit" of the story - that is, the story's intention as interpreted by its presentation of the facts - into account, is that really something we can say that the game is trying to communicate to us? Is it something that the creators of the game ever meant to suggest?

Or, you know, pick your theory. Does the fact that N is called "N" suggest that he was preceded by an A through M? I remember that being a somewhat popular theory on some sites even though the games don't say that. It's not strictly impossible, but it is hard to say that it's what the games were implying, since you basically have to start writing fanfiction in order to make it work.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Just that they're all white, really.

Not just that. I've noticed before their other stylistic similarities. The entire group, as a whole, evokes a certain sensation of stepping into a stylized past. Lusamine's dress, Lillie's dress, Wicke's dress, Faba's trenchcoat, the jumpsuits worn by the regular Aether Foundation employees... It's taken me a bit to look at it, but these are all found in the 1960s-1970s in both the U.S. and France.

There is definitely a common uniform theme beyond color. Much like how Team Skull has a certain punk aesthetic.

Lusamine went into Ultra Space before we even got to Poni Island. We spent at least one day at Aether Paradise after the wormhole incident. Add that onto the amount of time it would have taken to sail to Poni, then to Exeggutor, and then to trek to the altar - what makes you think that she waited, in all that time, until precisely the moment before we arrived to catch Nihilego? Doing that would take a few minutes at most.

It would take only a few minutes if she started battling it as soon as she arrived. Guzma himself confirms that didn't happen in-game after we arrive. What makes me think she waited until just before we arrived is because the game itself pretty much outright states that.

We know that Lusamine picked Lillie's clothes, which resemble Nihilego. We know she picked Gladion's clothes. As far as we know, she did not express any particular preference for the Foundation employees' outfits. You're assuming that there was intent behind the employee's outfits, but there's not said to be one, whereas we have expressed proof of her being particular about her children's clothing.

I was being fair in saying that there's no indication one way or the other as to how she dressed Gladion, but honestly, I think it stands to reason that she dressed him like Nihilego as well.

We don't need expressed proof of there being a preference about how the employees dress. We're outright shown this preference by the fact they all have uniforms. I'm not assuming anything; you can see these uniforms on the Bulbapedia page about the Aether Foundation. The fact there is a uniform policy in place means, in turn, that she very much has not only expressed her preference about how they dress, but made that preference a requirement.

And, yeah, if we ignore the entire Aether Foundation and everything about it, it is logical to conclude she dressed Gladion the same way.

No way. Nobody who doesn't care about their kids has such a passionately inflamed reaction to what she perceives as their betrayal.

Then you've never met a narcissist or a sociopath. I'm related to a narcissist, and trust me... They may not care at all about your feelings, but betray them and they will bring unholy wrath down upon you just because of the bruise to their ego. And Lusamine very much meets the "badly written sociopath" cliche in just about everything she does in-game, which includes the reaction she had to perceived betrayal.

If she was distanced toward them before, it's because she was growing increasingly obsessed with Ultra Space and therefore less sensitive toward the needs of her kids. She lost Mohn, which caused her to grieve, which she failed to manage in a healthy way. She started becoming obsessed, and then started projecting that obsession onto her kids. Then, two years ago, Gladion ran away out of sympathy for Type: Null. That's when Lusamine got "really bad" according to Lillie. Bad to the point that Lillie had to seek out protection and counseling from Wicke ("If I hadn't had Wicke with me...").

Lusamine didn't stop caring about Lillie per se. She just became extremely warped to the point where her obsession with Nihilego eclipsed her view of Lillie. So she tried to squeeze Lillie into the mold of her obsession, and if Lillie wouldn't comply, it frustrated Lusamine.

I agree with most of what you said here, but...

Yes, she became really bad after Gladion took off... but, given her cliched sociopath tendencies, she's acting precisely like how we've seen her in the rest of the game. She's angry he took off not because she cares about him, but because of the hurt to her ego.

She reacts exactly the same way to Lillie. Her words about Lillie betraying her are almost textbook supervillain.

So it makes far more sense that she was just apathetic before Gladion left, then went off the deep end and raged a lot and was overly critical of Lillie until she drove Lillie away.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here.

Simple: If she's actually paying attention to Lillie, even in a warped way, to try to make her fit what is to her a perfect Pokemon... Then why did she not notice Lillie was becoming distant, why did she not notice Lillie was sneaking around, and why did she not notice Lillie was planning to steal Cosmog until after Lillie already did it? The level of attention necessary to try to mold someone like the creature you admire is not the kind that easily lets things like that slip through.

He doesn't have to have seen it himself. We know that it has appeared in Alola's past. Wicke tells us that. We know that there are legends about the appearance of the fearsome UBs, so, obviously people in the ancient past had to have witnessed them. You think they didn't scribble down a description or draw on a cave wall or something? And in researching the UBs, there is little doubt that Mohn would have come across this information.

There are a lot of myths that were not written down or depicted in art until a very long time after they were created. And if the myths were passed down by oral tradition (they'd almost have to be), it's entirely possible the only details that would exist would be just the bare minimum details to recognize the creature... or even just the details of the destruction, if the people themselves tried to keep away. So even if there is art, it could possibly not depict the creature at all. Part of what I don't like about how this story is presented is that we're left to assume way too much and are missing some very critical details.

This is the sum of what's said about Mohn:

> Gladion: My mother's desires to reach Nihilego...and what she did in order to achieve that goal...I know she was completely out of control. But that doesn't mean I can't understand it. It was my father that started it. He was the one who first confirmed the existence of Ultra Wormholes and Ultra Beasts. But my father...He disappeared during an experiment. Trying to connect to an Ultra Wormhole. All that was left behind was a weakened Cosmog and his papers about Nihilego...Lusamine's obsession with Ultra Wormholes...and her obsession with the Ultra Beasts...I think it was all basically her way of trying to reach him again. That's what I had to believe. To get through it.

> NPC: There was a man named Mohn, who years ago published his theory about the Ultra Wormholes.

> Aether Report: Ultra Wormholes Beyond the Ultra Wormholes that Professor Mohn discovered lies a different dimension. By investigating the changes in mass there, we can predict the existence of Pokémon-like life. We have dubbed them Ultra Beasts for now.

What I took this all to mean, especially from the last entry, was that the UBs weren't discovered in modern times by anybody actually visiting Ultra Space first-hand. Mohn spend a week living in Ultra Space like it was some kind of vacation to Cancún and teach them what his wife and some random unrelated thug looked like. Instead, the existence of Ultra Space was formally confirmed by measuring the detectable changes in mass around it. I think this is meant to be similar to how scientists determine details about extrasolar planets, which they obviously can't measure directly, so instead, they look at how the planet affects and orbits its star, and at how it interacts with the light coming from the star. Human technology in the Pokémon world is more advanced than that, though, as they clearly have ways of analyzing the properties of not just space, but other dimensions as well (hence the Dimensional Research Lab).

That's why they predict the existence of Pokémon-like life. The changes in mass suggest that there are living beings there which are similar to Pokémon. But they didn't actually breach the dimension until Mohn's experiment, in which he fell into the wormhole.

The way the information is presented is problematic at best. The Aether Report basically makes it sound like Ultra Beasts are not yet confirmed, but the information about Mohn is that he did confirm them... meaning, very likely, that he had seen at least one. Given that the only way to see them is to open a wormhole, that suggests that the one he fell into was not the first one he opened. The information about Nihilego existing as it did, with him confirming Ultra Beasts existing, leads very much to the possibility that his confirming Nihilego exists is also the moment Nihilego made first contact with him, even if he didn't realize the creature he was looking at was looking back.

But if the Aether Report is right, then it's likely Gladion's information about Mohn confirming Ultra Beasts comes from Mohn after he fell through the wormhole. Which means his confirmation of them and their free access to him would happen at the same time, allowing them to learn about his family and famous people he knows of at the same time he learns of them... but leaves it also entirely possible the Nihilego report is too vague to be useful or is otherwise massively incomplete.

That is what makes me sigh and facepalm at how this series presents the information. It's too vague and too incomplete.

A personal theory? Outside of the setting, the resemblance between Lillie and Nihilego is no accident; they were supposed to have a much more clear-cut plot line and much more obvious connection. But, like the golf course, that was dropped during development, and instead the Aether Foundation was designed to look similar to her to provide an easy explanation for why she's dressed so oddly for Alola. And the report, confirmation, and other issues related to Ultra Beasts are just bad editing after plot rewrites.

I think this is a subtly different issue. Now, obviously I'm biased since I've made my opinions on this subject very clear elsewhere, but the point I'll be making has less to do with my specific side of the argument and more to do with the narrative structure and presentation in general.

This particular debate has only arisen because SM aren't very good with exposition. In the absolute simplest terms, the game never intentionally raises "Was she just obsessed or was she possessed all along?" as a topic of debate. The game never invites us to contemplate the scenario in those terms. Because of that, I don't think it's that the game "refuses to take a side" - I think it's more likely that the game never intended for there to be "sides" to begin with. There's no technical obstacle preventing the game from entertaining such a debate or from simply explaining things outright. It could do that if that were the intention. But what the game shows and tells us is that Lusamine was obsessed with Nihilego. It never goes that extra step into saying that she was brainwashed by it for years, or that she ever had personal contact with it prior to the game's Act II. The idea that her behavior was always being influenced by Nihilego from behind the curtain is an extrapolation that fans made based on the description of Nihilego's functions. Certainly, it is an extrapolation that can be argued fairly and does have synergy with with a number of details (though it conflicts with some others that I think are important, but that's me getting off-topic). However, you have to do more to connect the dots in order to get there, whereas Gladion spells out the obsession part of things for us directly. The fact that her behavior was borne of obsession that grew from her loss of Mohn is something the game definitely wants us to know. The possibility that her behavior was being secretly exaggerated by a Nihilego that she met offscreen through some undisclosed methods is something that, you know, I guess is maybe plausible if you read the dialogue a certain way.

Sort of like the "The UBs destroyed the Gens 3-5 games!" theory. There were definitely at least two Ultra Wormholes in the old universe. But does that mean the UBs utterly wiped out that Earth? If you read into certain details you can come to that conclusion, but taking the "spirit" of the story - that is, the story's intention as interpreted by its presentation of the facts - into account, is that really something we can say that the game is trying to communicate to us? Is it something that the creators of the game ever meant to suggest?

Or, you know, pick your theory. Does the fact that N is called "N" suggest that he was preceded by an A through M? I remember that being a somewhat popular theory on some sites even though the games don't say that. It's not strictly impossible, but it is hard to say that it's what the games were implying, since you basically have to start writing fanfiction in order to make it work.

This fully expresses my frustrations with the plot of Sun and Moon. Too much is unintentionally open to interpretation. There is too much that can be argued to support opposing conclusions.

Which would be great if that's what was intended, but it quite obviously wasn't.

And, I'll admit I always thought N was called N simply because he picked a letter at random in response to someone bothering him about his name, and then never cared enough to change it. But that's just because I like the conversation I imagine him having and how it shows him as just not being bothered with something he considers inconsequential XD

 

[godiego]

I think this is a subtly different issue. Now, obviously I'm biased since I've made my opinions on this subject very clear elsewhere, but the point I'll be making has less to do with my specific side of the argument and more to do with the narrative structure and presentation in general.

This particular debate has only arisen because SM aren't very good with exposition. In the absolute simplest terms, the game never intentionally raises "Was she just obsessed or was she possessed all along?" as a topic of debate. The game never invites us to contemplate the scenario in those terms. Because of that, I don't think it's that the game "refuses to take a side" - I think it's more likely that the game never intended for there to be "sides" to begin with. There's no technical obstacle preventing the game from entertaining such a debate or from simply explaining things outright. It could do that if that were the intention. But what the game shows and tells us is that Lusamine was obsessed with Nihilego. It never goes that extra step into saying that she was brainwashed by it for years, or that she ever had personal contact with it prior to the game's Act II. The idea that her behavior was always being influenced by Nihilego from behind the curtain is an extrapolation that fans made based on the description of Nihilego's functions. Certainly, it is an extrapolation that can be argued fairly and does have synergy with with a number of details (though it conflicts with some others that I think are important, but that's me getting off-topic). However, you have to do more to connect the dots in order to get there, whereas Gladion spells out the obsession part of things for us directly. The fact that her behavior was borne of obsession that grew from her loss of Mohn is something the game definitely wants us to know. The possibility that her behavior was being secretly exaggerated by a Nihilego that she met offscreen through some undisclosed methods is something that, you know, I guess is maybe plausible if you read the dialogue a certain way.

Sort of like the "The UBs destroyed the Gens 3-5 games!" theory. There were definitely at least two Ultra Wormholes in the old universe. But does that mean the UBs utterly wiped out that Earth? If you read into certain details you can come to that conclusion, but taking the "spirit" of the story - that is, the story's intention as interpreted by its presentation of the facts - into account, is that really something we can say that the game is trying to communicate to us? Is it something that the creators of the game ever meant to suggest?

Or, you know, pick your theory. Does the fact that N is called "N" suggest that he was preceded by an A through M? I remember that being a somewhat popular theory on some sites even though the games don't say that. It's not strictly impossible, but it is hard to say that it's what the games were implying, since you basically have to start writing fanfiction in order to make it work.

but i think what separates this from the UB and N theory is that those theories are rooted in assumptions and evidence that aren't provable at all in-game. although the game notes that UBs are destructive, that Wormholes go somewhere else, and that there people from the other universes that have traveled through those Wormholes into the Megaverse, there's nowhere that indicates that the non-Megaverse was destroyed.

but that's not the same with the possession bit. the game outright mentions that Nihilego has certain psychological capabilities. okay, so it's just flavor text. but then Guzma makes a case for it not being just a Pokedex entry, he says he was possessed himself too. okay, so it's one off. but then, immediately after Solgaleo/Lunala blasts apart Nihilego and Lusamine, she immediately remarks that her daughter is beautiful. what? why would she? and therein lies the hole: why would she instantly drop her obsession when separated from Nihilego? but then, if she were possessed, how could she have been when the game shows that the first time Lusamine even encountered a Nihilego is in the first visit during the story.

and though i agree that this hole stems largely from SM's poor narrative structure and how it doesn't see possession vs obsession as a story thread, that doesn't prevent it from being a hole. (much like how although ORAS doesn't really care about whether it hypothetically takes place further in the future compared to RSE, it still makes the references to Kalos and inconsistencies with Kalos a bit odd.) and to tie it all back together: the game doesn't even invite us to ponder what are perhaps similarities between certain characters. therefore, it probably is just a curious coincidence.

 

[Ereshkigal]

but i think what separates this from the UB and N theory is that those theories are rooted in assumptions and evidence that aren't provable at all in-game. although the game notes that UBs are destructive, that Wormholes go somewhere else, and that there people from the other universes that have traveled through those Wormholes into the Megaverse, there's nowhere that indicates that the non-Megaverse was destroyed.

but that's not the same with the possession bit. the game outright mentions that Nihilego has certain psychological capabilities. okay, so it's just flavor text. but then Guzma makes a case for it not being just a Pokedex entry, he says he was possessed himself too. okay, so it's one off. but then, immediately after Solgaleo/Lunala blasts apart Nihilego and Lusamine, she immediately remarks that her daughter is beautiful. what? why would she? and therein lies the hole: why would she instantly drop her obsession when separated from Nihilego? but then, if she were possessed, how could she have been when the game shows that the first time Lusamine even encountered a Nihilego is in the first visit during the story.

and though i agree that this hole stems largely from SM's poor narrative structure and how it doesn't see possession vs obsession as a story thread, that doesn't prevent it from being a hole. (much like how although ORAS doesn't really care about whether it hypothetically takes place further in the future compared to RSE, it still makes the references to Kalos and inconsistencies with Kalos a bit odd.) and to tie it all back together: the game doesn't even invite us to ponder what are perhaps similarities between certain characters. therefore, it probably is just a curious coincidence.

I'm blaming Skynet. I think it screwed up the timeline for the Terminator universe so badly that temporal echoes have been sent across the Megaverse to cause inconsistencies in other universes.

Watch. Any game now, a Terminator is going to accidentally pop up in the Pokeverse.

 

[Esserise]

Not just that. I've noticed before their other stylistic similarities. The entire group, as a whole, evokes a certain sensation of stepping into a stylized past. Lusamine's dress, Lillie's dress, Wicke's dress, Faba's trenchcoat, the jumpsuits worn by the regular Aether Foundation employees... It's taken me a bit to look at it, but these are all found in the 1960s-1970s in both the U.S. and France.

There is definitely a common uniform theme beyond color. Much like how Team Skull has a certain punk aesthetic.

I think that's all a valid observation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it suggests a deeper meaning besides a general aesthetic. And I definitely wouldn't think they expect the audience to pick up on "they all have a sort of mid-20th century Euro-American look" anywhere near as readily as Lillie and Nihilego's specific and very blatant similarities.

It would take only a few minutes if she started battling it as soon as she arrived. Guzma himself confirms that didn't happen in-game after we arrive. What makes me think she waited until just before we arrived is because the game itself pretty much outright states that.

What makes you think she specifically captured the one that attacked Guzma? Lusamine wasn't anywhere in that scene and there were tons of Nihilego floating around. She could easily have been off-screen catching one, and Guzma doesn't say anything about when Lusamine caught hers. He doesn't even really say anything about when he was attacked.

We don't need expressed proof of there being a preference about how the employees dress. We're outright shown this preference by the fact they all have uniforms. I'm not assuming anything; you can see these uniforms on the Bulbapedia page about the Aether Foundation. The fact there is a uniform policy in place means, in turn, that she very much has not only expressed her preference about how they dress, but made that preference a requirement.

She didn't necessarily do that, though. The Aether Foundation was founded by her father, and any organization like that is likely to have a dress code. The uniforms could easily pre-date her term as president.

Then you've never met a narcissist or a sociopath. I'm related to a narcissist, and trust me... They may not care at all about your feelings, but betray them and they will bring unholy wrath down upon you just because of the bruise to their ego. And Lusamine very much meets the "badly written sociopath" cliche in just about everything she does in-game, which includes the reaction she had to perceived betrayal.

I agree with most of what you said here, but...

Yes, she became really bad after Gladion took off... but, given her cliched sociopath tendencies, she's acting precisely like how we've seen her in the rest of the game. She's angry he took off not because she cares about him, but because of the hurt to her ego.

She reacts exactly the same way to Lillie. Her words about Lillie betraying her are almost textbook supervillain.

So it makes far more sense that she was just apathetic before Gladion left, then went off the deep end and raged a lot and was overly critical of Lillie until she drove Lillie away.

Fair enough on the first point, but I have to disagree with the rest. I don't think she was apathetic. It is unfortunate that the way in which the story is told prevents us from actually seeing what she was like in the time before our adventure started, but I never got the sense that she had no interest in her kids. Rather, I think she did care about them, but her obsession with Nihilego caused her to become desensitized toward their feelings and their individuality. She *wanted* the best for them, but her idea of their best interest was completely warped around her fixation. From her perspective, taking care of something meant forcing it into a perfect mold.

Additionally, Gladion says this:

> Gladion: Yeah, she's real nice...as long as you mean nothing to her.

Given that she was *not* "nice" to Gladion, does that not suggest that he *did* mean something to her?

Simple: If she's actually paying attention to Lillie, even in a warped way, to try to make her fit what is to her a perfect Pokemon... Then why did she not notice Lillie was becoming distant, why did she not notice Lillie was sneaking around, and why did she not notice Lillie was planning to steal Cosmog until after Lillie already did it? The level of attention necessary to try to mold someone like the creature you admire is not the kind that easily lets things like that slip through.

I don't have a hard time picturing her being so fixated with her idealized image that she stopped paying attention to Lillie's personal needs.

But ultimately, we just don't know. As I say, it is unfortunate that the game declines to actually show us any of this.

There are a lot of myths that were not written down or depicted in art until a very long time after they were created. And if the myths were passed down by oral tradition (they'd almost have to be), it's entirely possible the only details that would exist would be just the bare minimum details to recognize the creature... or even just the details of the destruction, if the people themselves tried to keep away. So even if there is art, it could possibly not depict the creature at all. Part of what I don't like about how this story is presented is that we're left to assume way too much and are missing some very critical details.

I don't think presuming the appearance of a carving or cave painting is all that much, really. But even if all we have is oral record, that's still plenty by this series' standards. Just look at almost any of the myths in previous games which are always rather helpfully detailed in their accounts of Legendary Pokémon and their respective feats. In ORAS, Zinnia is able to give us a thorough summary of a 2000-years-passed event in which Rayquaza first Mega Evolved and halted the conflict between Groudon and Kyogre, and she only knows about this through oral tradition and a large mural.

The way the information is presented is problematic at best. The Aether Report basically makes it sound like Ultra Beasts are not yet confirmed, but the information about Mohn is that he did confirm them... meaning, very likely, that he had seen at least one. Given that the only way to see them is to open a wormhole, that suggests that the one he fell into was not the first one he opened. The information about Nihilego existing as it did, with him confirming Ultra Beasts existing, leads very much to the possibility that his confirming Nihilego exists is also the moment Nihilego made first contact with him, even if he didn't realize the creature he was looking at was looking back.

I think I can agree that he may have seen a Nihilego before falling into a wormhole during a second experiment, but that's still a fair few off-screen, unspoken steps away from suggesting that he was possessed by that Nihilego, and that Lusamine was subsequently possessed by it as well. It does open the possibility, but does it push us in that direction?

But if the Aether Report is right, then it's likely Gladion's information about Mohn confirming Ultra Beasts comes from Mohn after he fell through the wormhole. Which means his confirmation of them and their free access to him would happen at the same time, allowing them to learn about his family and famous people he knows of at the same time he learns of them... but leaves it also entirely possible the Nihilego report is too vague to be useful or is otherwise massively incomplete.

This alternative feels much more messy and complicated to me.

At any rate, these studies and experiments would have happened many years ago, and I highly doubt that Mohn had any knowledge about Guzma at that time.

A personal theory? Outside of the setting, the resemblance between Lillie and Nihilego is no accident; they were supposed to have a much more clear-cut plot line and much more obvious connection. But, like the golf course, that was dropped during development, and instead the Aether Foundation was designed to look similar to her to provide an easy explanation for why she's dressed so oddly for Alola. And the report, confirmation, and other issues related to Ultra Beasts are just bad editing after plot rewrites.

I doubt this, myself, but that's neither here nor there. While I don't have my hopes up, I *am* curious to see if the producers' interview in the upcoming player's guide has anything to say about the development of this part of the storyline. I'll be sure to post any findings when it comes out.

This fully expresses my frustrations with the plot of Sun and Moon. Too much is unintentionally open to interpretation. There is too much that can be argued to support opposing conclusions.

Which would be great if that's what was intended, but it quite obviously wasn't.

On this, I can agree completely.

but i think what separates this from the UB and N theory is that those theories are rooted in assumptions and evidence that aren't provable at all in-game. although the game notes that UBs are destructive, that Wormholes go somewhere else, and that there people from the other universes that have traveled through those Wormholes into the Megaverse, there's nowhere that indicates that the non-Megaverse was destroyed.

but that's not the same with the possession bit. the game outright mentions that Nihilego has certain psychological capabilities. okay, so it's just flavor text. but then Guzma makes a case for it not being just a Pokedex entry, he says he was possessed himself too. okay, so it's one off. but then, immediately after Solgaleo/Lunala blasts apart Nihilego and Lusamine, she immediately remarks that her daughter is beautiful. what? why would she? and therein lies the hole: why would she instantly drop her obsession when separated from Nihilego? but then, if she were possessed, how could she have been when the game shows that the first time Lusamine even encountered a Nihilego is in the first visit during the story.

and though i agree that this hole stems largely from SM's poor narrative structure and how it doesn't see possession vs obsession as a story thread, that doesn't prevent it from being a hole. (much like how although ORAS doesn't really care about whether it hypothetically takes place further in the future compared to RSE, it still makes the references to Kalos and inconsistencies with Kalos a bit odd.) and to tie it all back together: the game doesn't even invite us to ponder what are perhaps similarities between certain characters. therefore, it probably is just a curious coincidence.

Good points.

For what it's worth, I just assumed that the "When did you start becoming beautiful?" moment was just the series being excessively saccharine, as has been the trend in their stories as of late. Rather like Floette returning to AZ after he sincerely atoned for his horrific actions in the war by... losing a Pokémon battle and deciding he was done with feeling sad.

 

[Silktree]

But Lusamine's line about Lillie actually being beautiful isn't really saccharine if we assume she meant physical beauty. It implies that there is still something screwed up with Lusamine's priorities.

She is going to be massively disappointed when she sees how her husband has let himself go.

Jokes aside, she was probably referring to inner beauty of some sort.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I think that's all a valid observation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it suggests a deeper meaning besides a general aesthetic. And I definitely wouldn't think they expect the audience to pick up on "they all have a sort of mid-20th century Euro-American look" anywhere near as readily as Lillie and Nihilego's specific and very blatant similarities.

I would not be in the least bit surprised if they did expect us to pick up on it. It adds a visual tie to Lusamine's reaction to Lillie's name and acts as a secondary clue to Lillie's connection to the Aether Foundation.

What makes you think she specifically captured the one that attacked Guzma? Lusamine wasn't anywhere in that scene and there were tons of Nihilego floating around. She could easily have been off-screen catching one, and Guzma doesn't say anything about when Lusamine caught hers. He doesn't even really say anything about when he was attacked.

His statement that she had gone nuts and should be stopped implies to a certain degree they had some time to interact before they separated. But at the same time, it likely would have been the first Nihilego she saw, and with her obsession she's not just going to run off and capture a different one when she literally has an opportunity right in front of her.

She didn't necessarily do that, though. The Aether Foundation was founded by her father, and any organization like that is likely to have a dress code. The uniforms could easily pre-date her term as president.

They could, but that would not explain why she would follow the same dress code. Organization leaders like her have a lot of leeway about outfit choice that the grunts don't have, and she chooses an entirely outfit style that fits within the existing uniform policy.

Fair enough on the first point, but I have to disagree with the rest. I don't think she was apathetic. It is unfortunate that the way in which the story is told prevents us from actually seeing what she was like in the time before our adventure started, but I never got the sense that she had no interest in her kids. Rather, I think she did care about them, but her obsession with Nihilego caused her to become desensitized toward their feelings and their individuality. She *wanted* the best for them, but her idea of their best interest was completely warped around her fixation. From her perspective, taking care of something meant forcing it into a perfect mold.

Additionally, Gladion says this:

> Gladion: Yeah, she's real nice...as long as you mean nothing to her.

Given that she was *not* "nice" to Gladion, does that not suggest that he *did* mean something to her?

His description of her is a textbook description of sociopaths by those who get close to them, both in and out of fiction. There is a massive difference between caring about someone and someone meaning something to you, as most who get close to sociopaths and narcissists can attest.

I really, really want Stars to focus on showing us more of this. Because there is a lot about her character they can clear up if they do.

I don't have a hard time picturing her being so fixated with her idealized image that she stopped paying attention to Lillie's personal needs.

But ultimately, we just don't know. As I say, it is unfortunate that the game declines to actually show us any of this.

Agreed!

I don't think presuming the appearance of a carving or cave painting is all that much, really. But even if all we have is oral record, that's still plenty by this series' standards. Just look at almost any of the myths in previous games which are always rather helpfully detailed in their accounts of Legendary Pokémon and their respective feats. In ORAS, Zinnia is able to give us a thorough summary of a 2000-years-passed event in which Rayquaza first Mega Evolved and halted the conflict between Groudon and Kyogre, and she only knows about this through oral tradition and a large mural.

Platinum shows us that the myths are sometimes entirely up to interpretation. If you visit Celestic Ruins after entering the hall of Fame, Cynthia has a rather long conversation with you about the painting and how it's commonly interpreted to refer to Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf around either Dialga or Palkia. She points out the alternative interpretation that it's Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina around a world-creator (Arceus).

So this series has actively pointed out at least once that the accuracy of these ancient depictions is likely often questionable and that the established mythology is pretty much a mixture of oral tradition and interpretation (which, as Platinum shows, may not always be accurate).

So, it's already established within continuity that just because the myths and traditions survive doesn't necessarily mean that the modern interpretation of them is accurate.

I think I can agree that he may have seen a Nihilego before falling into a wormhole during a second experiment, but that's still a fair few off-screen, unspoken steps away from suggesting that he was possessed by that Nihilego, and that Lusamine was subsequently possessed by it as well. It does open the possibility, but does it push us in that direction?

At this point, we're at the area of guesswork based on the information presented.

This alternative feels much more messy and complicated to me.

At any rate, these studies and experiments would have happened many years ago, and I highly doubt that Mohn had any knowledge about Guzma at that time.

Guzma used to be a lot more famous than he is by the time we meet him. He had a number of trophies for past accomplishments in his room. I wouldn't be surprised if Mohn didn't know of him when he was younger and a lot more successful, rather than the older burnout we meet in-game.

If the Ultra Beasts forms are based on Mohn's memories, then it's likely the typings we see are reflective of the personalities of the people they look like. I could see that; Lillie really is steady like a rock in her beliefs, but also poisoned by a lack of self-confidence. Lusamine is very strong-willed and willing to fight about it, but her somewhat-alien morality could be seen as very insect-like. Guzma may have had an electrifying energy about him when he was younger. And so on.

I doubt this, myself, but that's neither here nor there. While I don't have my hopes up, I *am* curious to see if the producers' interview in the upcoming player's guide has anything to say about the development of this part of the storyline. I'll be sure to post any findings when it comes out.

Same here. And I'm hoping those interviews clarify a lot about how this story came together.

 

[Esserise]

I would not be in the least bit surprised if they did expect us to pick up on it. It adds a visual tie to Lusamine's reaction to Lillie's name and acts as a secondary clue to Lillie's connection to the Aether Foundation.

It'd be an awfully specific thing for them to expect people to pick up on. To be perfectly honest, I don't even really see that much of a resemblance between Lusamine's, Lillie's Faba's, Wicke's, and the employees' outfits. They're sleek and white, but everything to do with the organization is. Within that very broad space, I see rather a lot of variation. This isn't really like Team Flare where everybody was literally dressed in "a red suit."

Lusamine's reaction to Lillie is already very well apparent on its own, and her connection to the Aether Foundation is quite obvious from the opening scene.

His statement that she had gone nuts and should be stopped implies to a certain degree they had some time to interact before they separated. But at the same time, it likely would have been the first Nihilego she saw, and with her obsession she's not just going to run off and capture a different one when she literally has an opportunity right in front of her.

Or it simply means that Guzma is only now just realizing, open being stranded in a weird dimension with her and seeing how she acts when finally surrounded by her beasts and with the object of her fixation in tow, that the woman he nestled up to is off her rocker. Prior to then, he was overlooking it because she was flattering him.

And your second statement changes nothing. For one thing, she was literally off-screen during the Guzma flashback, so we really do have no idea of what she was doing at that time. Secondly, we also really do have no indication as to when the Guzma scene takes place, but as I said, they were canonically in Ultra Space for at least an entire day, but probably more given that we still had to go through Poni Island in order to reach them. And when we arrived in Ultra Space, there were several Nihilego flying around. Why wouldn't there have been when Lusamine and Guzma arrived? Especially since, before jumping in, they were literally right next to a Nihilego, the one that we saw appear from the wormhole in Lusamine's secret chamber.

I know that Pokémon likes to time events around its protagonist, but I think saying that Lusamine sat around and waited until just before we entered Ultra Space - which, why right then? How could she know the significance of that exact moment in time? - requires a lot more mental gymnastics than simply figuring that she went into Ultra Space and caught one ASAP, and then spent the rest of the time communing with it or something else crazy that Guzma would have thought was sufficiently weird.

They could, but that would not explain why she would follow the same dress code. Organization leaders like her have a lot of leeway about outfit choice that the grunts don't have, and she chooses an entirely outfit style that fits within the existing uniform policy.

Because this is Pokémon, and there's no practical reason to give her a contradictory outfit. The villain leaders and organization heads in this series always have outfits that align with their underlings, even when their relationship to the group is meant to be "concealed" until later in the plot (like Cyrus being dressed in gray space clothes and having a wacky hair color). The only exceptions to this are N (whose relationship to Team Plasma was already spoiled by the opening) and Colress (whose outfit still fits the color scheme of Team Plasma's logo). Dressing members of a group similarly keeps things simple and straightforward for the audience, most of whom are younger children.

Lysandre inverts the emphasis of colors in his outfit in comparison to his grunts, but his is still a very fashionable, red-accented suit that wouldn't be out of place as a special member of Team Flare.

I really, really want Stars to focus on showing us more of this. Because there is a lot about her character they can clear up if they do.

Same here, although I'm wondering how satisfying it would even be. I think it's regrettable that they only seem to have gotten the story "right the first time" on one occasion, and in all others have needed a second chance to iron out the flaws. To me, it sort of suggests that maybe they'd be better off if they stopped attempting these more ambitious storylines. Their games aren't really built to sustain them.

Platinum shows us that the myths are sometimes entirely up to interpretation. If you visit Celestic Ruins after entering the hall of Fame, Cynthia has a rather long conversation with you about the painting and how it's commonly interpreted to refer to Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf around either Dialga or Palkia. She points out the alternative interpretation that it's Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina around a world-creator (Arceus).

So this series has actively pointed out at least once that the accuracy of these ancient depictions is likely often questionable and that the established mythology is pretty much a mixture of oral tradition and interpretation (which, as Platinum shows, may not always be accurate).

So, it's already established within continuity that just because the myths and traditions survive doesn't necessarily mean that the modern interpretation of them is accurate.

Hey, you're preaching to the choir there. For years I have been the ultra-pedant pointing out to people that there's no reason to assume that the myths in the games are true. These are stories that are god-knows-how-old, making conjectures about things that are even older. How could anybody really know that Arceus was born when its egg tumbled out of a vortex of chaos in the time before the universe existed? Why do we just take that for granted? I don't think there's any reason to. Especially with the Sinnoh myths, where I think the point is much less about how much is true or about codifying a genuine record of the universe's creation, and more about how people in old times perceived Pokémon.

But that doesn't change the fact that there have been other times where the old stories and cave paintings were accurate to the letter. Like Rayquaza. And all that a legend about Nihilego has to remember in order for Mohn to surmise its appearance is a general description, it's certainly within the realm of possibility. We know that there are legends about the UBs, and we know that only Nihilego has been seen in Alola's past, and we also know that Wicke somehow knows that second point. How would she know that Nihilego had been seen in the past? Well, if she went through Mohn's research and found that it had identified a creature that was very similar to the one they'd recently encountered...

Guzma used to be a lot more famous than he is by the time we meet him. He had a number of trophies for past accomplishments in his room. I wouldn't be surprised if Mohn didn't know of him when he was younger and a lot more successful, rather than the older burnout we meet in-game.

Guzma was a decent up-and-comer who had a couple of bronze trophies and one silver. He wasn't even a first-place winner, which is partially why he's so sensitive about being perceived as strong. And who says Mohn cared about local Pokémon competitions? He had Ultra Space research to be doing.

Plus, even if he was aware of Guzma, why would the UBs only imitate Lillie, Lusamine, and some random kid Mohn had some fringe knowledge about? Why not, you know, Mohn himself, or other people that he'd actually interacted with, or Gladion, or people around the region that were actually visible public figures like the kahunas? If it's true that the UBs are imitating the appearance of people in Mohn's memories, then why don't all of the UBs follow this trend? Why only the one story-relevant UB (which is another point - Nihilego is similar to Lillie, and it just so happens that it's the only one that matters as far as the main plot is concerned, so it's the only one where the likeness deliberately comes into direct view of everyone in the audience), one version-exclusive UB that Sun players aren't going to come across naturally, and then the odd-one-out (not story-relevant, not version-exclusive, not part of Looker's backstory)?

If the Ultra Beasts forms are based on Mohn's memories, then it's likely the typings we see are reflective of the personalities of the people they look like. I could see that; Lillie really is steady like a rock in her beliefs, but also poisoned by a lack of self-confidence. Lusamine is very strong-willed and willing to fight about it, but her somewhat-alien morality could be seen as very insect-like. Guzma may have had an electrifying energy about him when he was younger. And so on.

I think that's really stretching things.

 

[Ereshkigal]

It'd be an awfully specific thing for them to expect people to pick up on. To be perfectly honest, I don't even really see that much of a resemblance between Lusamine's, Lillie's Faba's, Wicke's, and the employees' outfits. They're sleek and white, but everything to do with the organization is. Within that very broad space, I see rather a lot of variation. This isn't really like Team Flare where everybody was literally dressed in "a red suit."

Lusamine's reaction to Lillie is already very well apparent on its own, and her connection to the Aether Foundation is quite obvious from the opening scene.

I often wonder if that opening scene wasn't created sometime after much of the plot had been... It just makes the effort at there being a plot twist at all utterly pointless.

And this isn't the first time we've seen this much variation within the same group. Team Galactic had just as much for their theme.

Or it simply means that Guzma is only now just realizing, open being stranded in a weird dimension with her and seeing how she acts when finally surrounded by her beasts and with the object of her fixation in tow, that the woman he nestled up to is off her rocker. Prior to then, he was overlooking it because she was flattering him.

And your second statement changes nothing. For one thing, she was literally off-screen during the Guzma flashback, so we really do have no idea of what she was doing at that time. Secondly, we also really do have no indication as to when the Guzma scene takes place, but as I said, they were canonically in Ultra Space for at least an entire day, but probably more given that we still had to go through Poni Island in order to reach them. And when we arrived in Ultra Space, there were several Nihilego flying around. Why wouldn't there have been when Lusamine and Guzma arrived? Especially since, before jumping in, they were literally right next to a Nihilego, the one that we saw appear from the wormhole in Lusamine's secret chamber.

I know that Pokémon likes to time events around its protagonist, but I think saying that Lusamine sat around and waited until just before we entered Ultra Space - which, why right then? How could she know the significance of that exact moment in time? - requires a lot more mental gymnastics than simply figuring that she went into Ultra Space and caught one ASAP, and then spent the rest of the time communing with it or something else crazy that Guzma would have thought was sufficiently weird.

I'm not saying there weren't other Nihilego around. I'm saying I think she focused on the one that was right there and gave chase to it. There's also nothing that says she had to spend that time sitting around; trying to capture the thing, resting as needed, chasing it, cornering it, battling it, and then capturing it could have taken a day or more depending on how much effort was needed in each step. There really is no reason why she had to just be sitting around.

Because this is Pokémon, and there's no practical reason to give her a contradictory outfit. The villain leaders and organization heads in this series always have outfits that align with their underlings, even when their relationship to the group is meant to be "concealed" until later in the plot (like Cyrus being dressed in gray space clothes and having a wacky hair color). The only exceptions to this are N (whose relationship to Team Plasma was already spoiled by the opening) and Colress (whose outfit still fits the color scheme of Team Plasma's logo). Dressing members of a group similarly keeps things simple and straightforward for the audience, most of whom are younger children.

Lysandre inverts the emphasis of colors in his outfit in comparison to his grunts, but his is still a very fashionable, red-accented suit that wouldn't be out of place as a special member of Team Flare.

You're right. This is Pokemon. There's no practical reason to give members of the same group contradictory outfits. And Lillie is established in-game as being part of the Aether Foundation from the very moment the game is turned on. And unlike N, at no point does Lillie fully turn against the leadership of the team.

I think at this point we've completely shot down the idea that Lillie is dressed any differently from the rest of the Foundation.

Same here, although I'm wondering how satisfying it would even be. I think it's regrettable that they only seem to have gotten the story "right the first time" on one occasion, and in all others have needed a second chance to iron out the flaws. To me, it sort of suggests that maybe they'd be better off if they stopped attempting these more ambitious storylines. Their games aren't really built to sustain them.

Agreed on every level. I would actually like to see them focus on smaller, more personal stories. The times I've seen them try their hand at that, it's always been better writing. Though, I do kinda think that Ruby and Sapphire were fine as they were written originally, but meh.

Hey, you're preaching to the choir there. For years I have been the ultra-pedant pointing out to people that there's no reason to assume that the myths in the games are true. These are stories that are god-knows-how-old, making conjectures about things that are even older. How could anybody really know that Arceus was born when its egg tumbled out of a vortex of chaos in the time before the universe existed? Why do we just take that for granted? I don't think there's any reason to. Especially with the Sinnoh myths, where I think the point is much less about how much is true or about codifying a genuine record of the universe's creation, and more about how people in old times perceived Pokémon.

But that doesn't change the fact that there have been other times where the old stories and cave paintings were accurate to the letter. Like Rayquaza. And all that a legend about Nihilego has to remember in order for Mohn to surmise its appearance is a general description, it's certainly within the realm of possibility. We know that there are legends about the UBs, and we know that only Nihilego has been seen in Alola's past, and we also know that Wicke somehow knows that second point. How would she know that Nihilego had been seen in the past? Well, if she went through Mohn's research and found that it had identified a creature that was very similar to the one they'd recently encountered...

Which is assuming a lot for a creature that's a confirmed shape-shifter. Even if depictions of it did survive, we have no reason to assume the depictions in the past and the appearance in the present are a match. If anything, we have in-game evidence to suggest a reasonable chance they're not. But since other shape-shifters exist in the Pokeverse, it being the same creature could still be inferred from other evidence.

Guzma was a decent up-and-comer who had a couple of bronze trophies and one silver. He wasn't even a first-place winner, which is partially why he's so sensitive about being perceived as strong. And who says Mohn cared about local Pokémon competitions? He had Ultra Space research to be doing.

Plus, even if he was aware of Guzma, why would the UBs only imitate Lillie, Lusamine, and some random kid Mohn had some fringe knowledge about? Why not, you know, Mohn himself, or other people that he'd actually interacted with, or Gladion, or people around the region that were actually visible public figures like the kahunas? If it's true that the UBs are imitating the appearance of people in Mohn's memories, then why don't all of the UBs follow this trend? Why only the one story-relevant UB (which is another point - Nihilego is similar to Lillie, and it just so happens that it's the only one that matters as far as the main plot is concerned, so it's the only one where the likeness deliberately comes into direct view of everyone in the audience), one version-exclusive UB that Sun players aren't going to come across naturally, and then the odd-one-out (not story-relevant, not version-exclusive, not part of Looker's backstory)?

That's assuming the creatures don't mimic how people may have looked in the past and people Mohn have known in the past. Black/White and Black 2/White 2 confirm that people in the Pokeverse do change appearance over time. People could have come and gone from the Aether Foundation in the time since he disappeared. They could be following this trend completely, just with a case that the world moved on and people changed since the time Mohn's memories were accessed.

I think that's really stretching things.

Most of what we're talking about is a massive stretch.

 

[Esserise]

I often wonder if that opening scene wasn't created sometime after much of the plot had been... It just makes the effort at there being a plot twist at all utterly pointless.

I wonder the same about the BW's N prologue.

And this isn't the first time we've seen this much variation within the same group. Team Galactic had just as much for their theme.

That's true, but the Team Galactic dress code didn't have any deeper meaning than them being a weird space cult.

In this case, we're debating whether the Foundation employee's outfits have any relevance to Lusamine's personality traits. We know that Lillie's does, but my position is that it's specific to her kids and reflective her love of Nihilego, while yours is that she's dressing her kids like employees because her love of Nihilego has severed her love for her human family (at least, that's how I understand your argument).

To be perfectly honest, I'll level with you and say that I don't think Lusamine's obsessivenes doesn't align with the Aether Foundation's uniformity. I mean you're right, she is that type of person. My difference is that I think the Lillie and Nihilego resemblance is aiming for a very specific parallel, which would be only tangentially related to anything else to do with the Foundation's aesthetic.

I'm not saying there weren't other Nihilego around. I'm saying I think she focused on the one that was right there and gave chase to it. There's also nothing that says she had to spend that time sitting around; trying to capture the thing, resting as needed, chasing it, cornering it, battling it, and then capturing it could have taken a day or more depending on how much effort was needed in each step. There really is no reason why she had to just be sitting around.

It took me like, two throws to catch Nihilego while its HP was still in the green. Yeah, yeah, I know, Gameplay And Story Segregation, but those Beast Balls are pretty effective. I just can't see her capture attempt stretching out for several days, or potentially even a week or more. If they'd given any sort of indication as to that being the case, it'd be a different story.

I think at this point we've completely shot down the idea that Lillie is dressed any differently from the rest of the Foundation.

Again, I agree that she's intended to fit their general aesthetic, but I maintain that she is dressed "differently" in the sense that there is a particular symbolic intention behind her outfit, where there is much less of one behind the employees' jumpsuits.

Agreed on every level. I would actually like to see them focus on smaller, more personal stories. The times I've seen them try their hand at that, it's always been better writing. Though, I do kinda think that Ruby and Sapphire were fine as they were written originally, but meh.

Smaller, more personal stories get a big thumbs-up from me. I'm a bit weird with the story of the Hoenn games - I hate how it's written in RSE, but I think the character development is much better in ORAS despite the scale of the plot being far bigger than it was in the originals.

Which is assuming a lot for a creature that's a confirmed shape-shifter. Even if depictions of it did survive, we have no reason to assume the depictions in the past and the appearance in the present are a match. If anything, we have in-game evidence to suggest a reasonable chance they're not. But since other shape-shifters exist in the Pokeverse, it being the same creature could still be inferred from other evidence.

No, if anything, we have in-game evidence to suggest that it did look the same back then. Wicke says outright that there have been sightings of Nihilego in Alola's past, and by that point in the story, she has only seen it in its Lillie-esque form. If it didn't take its Lillie-esque form - the only form that anybody in the main story sees it in - until recently, then how could anybody identify that it's the same creature that appeared in the ancient past? The simplest answer is that Mohn came across old descriptions of the creature, and that Mohn's research gave Lusamine a reference point for Lillie's clothing. This research is presumably what Wicke was referencing in the post-game, too, when she was sharing Aether's research with the International Police.

But frankly, the detail about Nihilego being a shapeshifter never actually comes up in the games proper. It's just a bit of flavor on the official site that didn't carry over into the games. Wicke doesn't even mention it in her comprehensive biology report about it. The official site also says that it's "constantly" changing shape and never settles on a single one, but that's not shown to be the case in the games at all.

People could have come and gone from the Aether Foundation in the time since he disappeared. They could be following this trend completely, just with a case that the world moved on and people changed since the time Mohn's memories were accessed.

How convenient, then, that the remaining UBs all resemble characters that are never even implied to exist.

Most of what we're talking about is a massive stretch.

Eh, I understand what you're getting at with this, but I think the fundamental elements of our arguments quite simple, and rooted in what (admittedly vague) facts the game does offer. While I'm not trying to knock it, I think your proposal that the UBs types are representative of those characters' traits is so flexible and so dependent on individual interpretation and conjecture that it exceeds the realm of mere inference.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I wonder the same about the BW's N prologue.

Same here. I get the same feeling from a couple others in the series.

That's true, but the Team Galactic dress code didn't have any deeper meaning than them being a weird space cult.

In this case, we're debating whether the Foundation employee's outfits have any relevance to Lusamine's personality traits. We know that Lillie's does, but my position is that it's specific to her kids and reflective her love of Nihilego, while yours is that she's dressing her kids like employees because her love of Nihilego has severed her love for her human family (at least, that's how I understand your argument).

To be perfectly honest, I'll level with you and say that I don't think Lusamine's obsessivenes doesn't align with the Aether Foundation's uniformity. I mean you're right, she is that type of person. My difference is that I think the Lillie and Nihilego resemblance is aiming for a very specific parallel, which would be only tangentially related to anything else to do with the Foundation's aesthetic.

I think we're on a point where it's too close to tell one way or the other. Either Lillie is dressed to resemble the Nihilego, or she's dressed in the style of the Aether employees. Either one fits what we have to call upon.

Then again, it could be both. Which would introduce even more headaches.

It took me like, two throws to catch Nihilego while its HP was still in the green. Yeah, yeah, I know, Gameplay And Story Segregation, but those Beast Balls are pretty effective. I just can't see her capture attempt stretching out for several days, or potentially even a week or more. If they'd given any sort of indication as to that being the case, it'd be a different story.

I think it depends on how long it took her to separate the Nihilego from Guzma. Or if she even tried to capture the Nihilego while it was still merged with him. We really need more details on this.

Again, I agree that she's intended to fit their general aesthetic, but I maintain that she is dressed "differently" in the sense that there is a particular symbolic intention behind her outfit, where there is much less of one behind the employees' jumpsuits.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Smaller, more personal stories get a big thumbs-up from me. I'm a bit weird with the story of the Hoenn games - I hate how it's written in RSE, but I think the character development is much better in ORAS despite the scale of the plot being far bigger than it was in the originals.

My only problem with ORAS is it takes two groups who had good intentions but screwed up and makes them a bit more villainous. That was why I liked Ruby and Sapphire; Teams Magma and Aqua were not really villains so much as misguided people who nearly caused an apocalypse because they didn't stop to think about the powers they were playing with. That makes the two deciding to work together afterward more satisfying to me. In ORAS, they both struck me as a bit more villainous than they had been in the originals.

No, if anything, we have in-game evidence to suggest that it did look the same back then. Wicke says outright that there have been sightings of Nihilego in Alola's past, and by that point in the story, she has only seen it in its Lillie-esque form. If it didn't take its Lillie-esque form - the only form that anybody in the main story sees it in - until recently, then how could anybody identify that it's the same creature that appeared in the ancient past? The simplest answer is that Mohn came across old descriptions of the creature, and that Mohn's research gave Lusamine a reference point for Lillie's clothing. This research is presumably what Wicke was referencing in the post-game, too, when she was sharing Aether's research with the International Police.

But frankly, the detail about Nihilego being a shapeshifter never actually comes up in the games proper. It's just a bit of flavor on the official site that didn't carry over into the games. Wicke doesn't even mention it in her comprehensive biology report about it. The official site also says that it's "constantly" changing shape and never settles on a single one, but that's not shown to be the case in the games at all.

Nihilego being a shapeshifter is outright shown in the game when you battle Lusamine after she's captured it. She merges with it and it changes shape.

That still doesn't mean that Wicke could not have been comparing some aspect of its behavior to previous legends describing how it acted, or better yet that Wicke was simply not just assuming it was the same creature because of some superficial similarities. "Shape-shifting jellyfish blob" is pretty much the description of the thing, after all.

How convenient, then, that the remaining UBs all resemble characters that are never even implied to exist.

Eh, I understand what you're getting at with this, but I think the fundamental elements of our arguments quite simple, and rooted in what (admittedly vague) facts the game does offer. While I'm not trying to knock it, I think your proposal that the UBs types are representative of those characters' traits is so flexible and so dependent on individual interpretation and conjecture that it exceeds the realm of mere inference.

There's a lot about both sides of the discussion that go massively beyond pure inference. That Lillie's outfit is intended to resemble Nihilego based on Lusamine's obsession with the creature is one of those instances. The problem with how the story is written is that it invites us to go massively beyond mere inference to the point we're deep in fanon territory.

What we have with this game is information that is too incomplete to escape that tendency. No matter what explanation we come up with, even if that explanation is simply that Lillie's appearance matching anything is pure coincidence, we're still going far beyond the information presented in the game.

That's why I hope they outright reveal the design inspiration for Lillie's outfit. That way, we have some actual official basis for one stance and can put this to rest for certain. I'll gladly accept being wrong about Lillie's outfit and the forms of the Ultra Beasts if it means having more information about Lusamine's story to work with.

 

[Esserise]

I think it depends on how long it took her to separate the Nihilego from Guzma. Or if she even tried to capture the Nihilego while it was still merged with him. We really need more details on this.

Who says the Nihilego that attacked Guzma was the same one she was after? She could have been chasing the first one she saw while Guzma said, "Well hell, guess I may as well try to get one too." There were plenty to choose from. I reiterate that she isn't anywhere near Guzma in the flashback scene.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Seems that way, yeah.

My only problem with ORAS is it takes two groups who had good intentions but screwed up and makes them a bit more villainous. That was why I liked Ruby and Sapphire; Teams Magma and Aqua were not really villains so much as misguided people who nearly caused an apocalypse because they didn't stop to think about the powers they were playing with. That makes the two deciding to work together afterward more satisfying to me. In ORAS, they both struck me as a bit more villainous than they had been in the originals.

I suppose I can see that. To me, I suppose they did seem more... let's say, passionate about their goals in ORAS, but it was a worthy trade-off in my mind for them having actual character traits and flashes of personality. They're even somewhat amicable toward you (especially Archie in Alpha Sapphire, who also has Shelly as a humanizing influence and receives an additional backstory detail alongside her involving a formative encounter with Jirachi). In RS, not only were Archie and Maxie completely interchangeable, but I found them to be dreadfully flat as characters. They're just walking megaphones for the plot to describe itself through.

Nihilego being a shapeshifter is outright shown in the game when you battle Lusamine after she's captured it. She merges with it and it changes shape.

Yeah, but that's hardly a normal circumstance. We're shown no evidence of it shapeshifting "free-handedly," as it were.

That still doesn't mean that Wicke could not have been comparing some aspect of its behavior to previous legends describing how it acted, or better yet that Wicke was simply not just assuming it was the same creature because of some superficial similarities. "Shape-shifting jellyfish blob" is pretty much the description of the thing, after all.

In a less straightforward series, maybe. Game Feak's writing isn't that complicated.

There's a lot about both sides of the discussion that go massively beyond pure inference. That Lillie's outfit is intended to resemble Nihilego based on Lusamine's obsession with the creature is one of those instances.

Even though a huge swath of the fandom agree with that interpretation? Not to suggest that fandom consensus is infallible, but these dots have proven quite easy for most people to connect. Lillie looks like Nihilego = Lillie's mom is obsessed with Nihilego = Lillie says mom always picked her clothes, done.

That's why I hope they outright reveal the design inspiration for Lillie's outfit. That way, we have some actual official basis for one stance and can put this to rest for certain. I'll gladly accept being wrong about Lillie's outfit and the forms of the Ultra Beasts if it means having more information about Lusamine's story to work with.

Well, here's hoping we find out in a couple weeks.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

I personally think it's exceedingly obvious that Lillie's outfit - in an out of universe sense - is based on Nihilego. The silhouette is near identical, the color scheme is similar, and there is literally no point to the line in Nihilego's flavor text about it acting like a young girl except to draw parallels with Lillie.

Now, in universe, which is what the topic seems to be, I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other towards either of the positions presented in this thread. I will say, however, that Occam's Razor definitely points towards Esserise's interpretation - at least in my opinion. Lillie looks like Nihilego. Lillie's mom picks her clothes. Lillie's mom is canonically obsessed with Nihilego. So it makes sense that the reason Lillie's mom picked clothes that look like Nihilego is because of that obsession.

As for why the clothes have the white color scheme? Maybe lusamine just likes the color white. After all, she wears white. That seems more reasonable to me than to claim that the color represents lusamine trying to turn her daughter into her employee.

Finally, Nihilego cannot "possess" people. It's not like a ghost or something lol. Idk where y'all are getting the idea that Mohn might have really been a Nihilego possessing Mohn's body. What Nihilego does is release neurotoxins that reduce your inhibitions.

Nihilego is a parasitic organism, capable of injecting a neurotoxin that subtly alters the thoughts and actions of any human or Pokémon that becomes its host. This neurotoxin stimulates intense feelings of excitement while causing a loss of inhibitions, which acts to forcibly bring out any latent potential within the host while wearing away at their minds.

^
Bulbapedia's paraphrasing of the flavor text

 

[Esserise]

Finally, Nihilego cannot "possess" people. It's not like a ghost or something lol. Idk where y'all are getting the idea that Mohn might have really been a Nihilego possessing Mohn's body. What Nihilego does is release neurotoxins that reduce your inhibitions.

Guzma does describe the Nihilego's attack on him in Ultra Space as "possession," but I'd argue that he doesn't seem very bright and could easily be unaware of the nuance. He's got no specific knowledge of the creature or its functions, after all; he still refers to it bluntly as "that thing."

I tend to see fans (and I have gone with this before too, out of convenience) use the term "possession" as shorthand for describing the state of being under Nihilego's parasitic influence, even though it is strictly true that it doesn't possess you in the sense of inhabiting your body and/or overriding your motor control.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Who says the Nihilego that attacked Guzma was the same one she was after? She could have been chasing the first one she saw while Guzma said, "Well hell, guess I may as well try to get one too." There were plenty to choose from. I reiterate that she isn't anywhere near Guzma in the flashback scene.

I just don't see any reason for her to chase after a different one when one is right in front of her. That doesn't match her personality at all.

I suppose I can see that. To me, I suppose they did seem more... let's say, passionate about their goals in ORAS, but it was a worthy trade-off in my mind for them having actual character traits and flashes of personality. They're even somewhat amicable toward you (especially Archie in Alpha Sapphire, who also has Shelly as a humanizing influence and receives an additional backstory detail alongside her involving a formative encounter with Jirachi). In RS, not only were Archie and Maxie completely interchangeable, but I found them to be dreadfully flat as characters. They're just walking megaphones for the plot to describe itself through.

Oh, I'm not saying they didn't need more characterization; they did. I just think the characterization chosen was wrong for them. I mean, they were not completely wrong in their viewpoint.

But, then, the rest of ORAS more than makes up for that one little quibble.

Yeah, but that's hardly a normal circumstance. We're shown no evidence of it shapeshifting "free-handedly," as it were.

I dunno. The Dex entries seem to indicate that it is a normal occurrence for that Pokemon. And I'll admit we're never shown it shape-shifting freehand, but there's plenty of information to suggest it's possible.

In a less straightforward series, maybe. Game Feak's writing isn't that complicated.

Platinum, again. Game Freak has already demonstrated a less-straightforward thinking process about the myths.

Even though a huge swath of the fandom agree with that interpretation? Not to suggest that fandom consensus is infallible, but these dots have proven quite easy for most people to connect. Lillie looks like Nihilego = Lillie's mom is obsessed with Nihilego = Lillie says mom always picked her clothes, done.

Huge swaths of people can be very wrong. Especially fandoms. It's just as easy to see Lillie looks like an Aether Foundation Employee = Lillie's Mom is obsessed with Nihilego to the point of using her own children as tools and runs the Aether Foundation = Lillie says mom always picked her clothes. Same three steps, just a bit more information considered.

Well, here's hoping we find out in a couple weeks.

Agreed!

I personally think it's exceedingly obvious that Lillie's outfit - in an out of universe sense - is based on Nihilego. The silhouette is near identical, the color scheme is similar, and there is literally no point to the line in Nihilego's flavor text about it acting like a young girl except to draw parallels with Lillie.

I'm not disagreeing that there is a strong connection between them. But the silhouette is only similar up until you hit the head, then it goes wildly off. And in Pokemon, that's often the difference between evolutions or even entire species.

Now, in universe, which is what the topic seems to be, I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other towards either of the positions presented in this thread. I will say, however, that Occam's Razor definitely points towards Esserise's interpretation - at least in my opinion. Lillie looks like Nihilego. Lillie's mom picks her clothes. Lillie's mom is canonically obsessed with Nihilego. So it makes sense that the reason Lillie's mom picked clothes that look like Nihilego is because of that obsession.

As for why the clothes have the white color scheme? Maybe lusamine just likes the color white. After all, she wears white. That seems more reasonable to me than to claim that the color represents lusamine trying to turn her daughter into her employee.

Occam's Razor usually leads to absurd conclusions and mostly isn't a valid logic path. That's why science doesn't use it anymore and instead relies on falsifiability.

I really, really wish they would stop teaching Occam's Razor. It may have once been a useful tool for logical deduction, but these days it's more of a stepping stone to true logical thought and not even a necessary one at that.

Anyway, your statement that Lusamine just likes the color white ignores the fact that both the outfits for Lusamine and Lillie happen to match the uniform aesthetic of the Aether Foundation. And it ignores the fact that every time GameFreak has designed characters with outfits to match an organization like that in a game in which that organization exists, they have always been members of that organization. The outfits, when they match, are always intended as a very obvious visual signal that these people are part of the same organization. Sun and Moon show absolutely no signs of abandoning that design element.

Finally, Nihilego cannot "possess" people. It's not like a ghost or something lol. Idk where y'all are getting the idea that Mohn might have really been a Nihilego possessing Mohn's body. What Nihilego does is release neurotoxins that reduce your inhibitions.

^
Bulbapedia's paraphrasing of the flavor text

Guzma does describe the Nihilego's attack on him in Ultra Space as "possession," but I'd argue that he doesn't seem very bright and could easily be unaware of the nuance. He's got no specific knowledge of the creature or its functions, after all; he still refers to it bluntly as "that thing."

I tend to see fans (and I have gone with this before too, out of convenience) use the term "possession" as shorthand for describing the state of being under Nihilego's parasitic influence, even though it is strictly true that it doesn't possess you in the sense of inhabiting your body and/or overriding your motor control.

I get the idea from the point in the game where Nihilego and Lusamine effectively merge into one being, and from Guzma indicating the experience happened to him. Possession does not inherently mean overriding of will, and a lot of real-world demonic possession accounts have the spirit overriding the inhibitions of their host. Thus, turning what is normally a nice, ordinary person into a raging psychopath by removing all of the mental barriers they have in place that normally prevent them from being a raging psychopath.

It's not anime or cartoon possession, but more of a historical account of possession going on. That's part of why there is the modern theory that the old stories of demons were entirely stories about disease and people simply not knowing any better. A lot of the modern idea of possession equals the spirit taking total control is mostly flanderization of those older accounts.

Also, since a lot of these older accounts were thought to be the Devil himself doing the possessing, this inevitably led to the phrase "the Devil made me do it."

 

[Esserise]

I just don't see any reason for her to chase after a different one when one is right in front of her. That doesn't match her personality at all.

Forget about what Lusamine did for a minute. My point is, there's nothing indicating that the Nihilego that she caught and the Nihilego that Guzma interacted with are the same one. Lusamine could very well have gone right after the first one they met. Guzma could then have buggered off and gone at a different one. There's nothing suggesting they're the same Nihilego.

I dunno. The Dex entries seem to indicate that it is a normal occurrence for that Pokemon. And I'll admit we're never shown it shape-shifting freehand, but there's plenty of information to suggest it's possible.

Neither of Nihilego's Pokédex entries say anything about being able to shapeshift.

Platinum, again. Game Freak has already demonstrated a less-straightforward thinking process about the myths.

This isn't really about how people interpret myths. We're straight-up told that Nihilego was sighted in the past. The game doesn't treat this with any ambiguity whatsoever, and you only run into a snag if you also happen to have crafted an entire theory about the UBs' forms being recent developments based on Mohn's memories. Without that theory - which is hardly endorsed by the game itself - there's no issue, because Nihilego looks how it always looked, and so of course they're able to verify that it was also sighted in the past.

I'm not disagreeing that there is a strong connection between them. But the silhouette is only similar up until you hit the head, then it goes wildly off.

It's not that different. It's still a wide-rimmed hat, just a bit frillier.