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Things you liked + disliked about XY's plot

@Esserise


You know, I didn't think about that much. I wonder why people hate Diantha so much then, if she is no different from other Champions.
(It's probably because battling her is easier than most other Champions, now that I think about it.)

Off topic, but I totally disagree that 3rd versions are useless. They are usually significantly better than the original pairs, which I often can't even be bothered to play through. (This mainly applies to RS and DP).
This.

If anything, I would argue that the third versions (Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, USUM) should've been the initial pairs to begin with, and the initial pairs should've just been a beta version of the final product.

But that is off topic, indeed.
 
1. Giovanni didn't commit genocide. Two of his grunts killed a Marowak, the Celadon branch gave Pokemon away as casino prizes, and he was after the Master Ball (probably for Mewtwo).

I think that's kind of downplaying it on Team Rocket's end. They were a dedicated crime syndicate - their motto is literally a directive to steal and exploit Pokémon for money, and the death of the Marowak shows that they have no real compunctions about bringing harm to anything that gets in their way.

You could argue that that's not really a patch on genocide, and I'd agree, but Team Rocket were still a sick, twisted, heartless, region-wide racket whose operations Giovanni had full knowledge of and actively facilitated for his own gain, up until his conscience finally got kicked back into gear.

2. AZ was clearly being accepted by everyone around him in the ending. In contrast, Giovanni's badge was initially rejected by Red, and it was clear that he would have to leave Kanto and keep a low profile.

3. The Origins episode explained Giovanni's transformation fairly well, while XY didn't shed light on Floette's return. AZ losing to the player was the trigger, seriously? The Generations short ("The Redemption", lol) didn't fix this, either

True.

Off topic, but I totally disagree that 3rd versions are useless. They are usually significantly better than the original pairs, which I often can't even be bothered to play through. (This mainly applies to RS and DP).

That's basically inevitable, since an upper version inherently has more time to be developed and to have content added to it than an initial pair. Obviously I myself prefer Platinum over Diamond & Pearl, for example. The problem is, moreso even than initial pairs and remakes, upper versions only exist to squeeze a little extra money out of hardcore players' pockets. And for what? A minor polish to the story? A slightly expanded Pokémon selection? A few side-features? Especially these days, when we're at a point to where, technologically, such kinds of additional content can be sold digitally à la carte rather than as a fully-packaged, full-price game. Upper versions are good games built from a bad premise.

(Well, truth be told, I don't love DLC either, so what I really wish is that they'd just work for longer in between releases and make the initial pairs better. But realistically, I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon.)
 
That's basically inevitable, since an upper version inherently has more time to be developed and to have content added to it than an initial pair. Obviously I myself prefer Platinum over Diamond & Pearl, for example. The problem is, moreso even than initial pairs and remakes, upper versions only exist to squeeze a little extra money out of hardcore players' pockets. And for what? A minor polish to the story? A slightly expanded Pokémon selection? A few side-features? Especially these days, when we're at a point to where, technologically, such kinds of additional content can be sold digitally à la carte rather than as a fully-packaged, full-price game. Upper versions are good games built from a bad premise.

I mean, yeah. I do think that third versions are, at least in part, a cash grab by the developers. However, I also see them as director's cuts of the initial pairs, which makes buying them worth it for me. Things such as changes or additions to the story, improved post-game content, and extra Pokemon really improve the overall game experience even if each of those features looks small on its own. It's why I wait for third versions in the first place, although recent gens have switched to a second pair like B2W2 or USUM rather than a single game.

According to me, actually having an initial pair as opposed to just one game is far more of a cash grab than a third version.

(Well, truth be told, I don't love DLC either, so what I really wish is that they'd just work for longer in between releases and make the initial pairs better. But realistically, I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon.)

Agreed. I particularly dislike subscription services.
 
I really hate Pokemon X and Y, like after the perfect combination of engaging story and a postgame that kept me playing for hours, they decided to be lazy on the content and make X and Y being more barren than a desert. Also, Lysandre committing suicide in order to take the player down with him, really? That's the worst way I have seen a Pokemon villain getting punished for the horrible acts. Ghetsis raging and having the shortest temper to the point he can't do anything anymore was so much better for villain punishment.
 
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I think that's kind of downplaying it on Team Rocket's end. They were a dedicated crime syndicate - their motto is literally a directive to steal and exploit Pokémon for money, and the death of the Marowak shows that they have no real compunctions about bringing harm to anything that gets in their way.

You could argue that that's not really a patch on genocide, and I'd agree, but Team Rocket were still a sick, twisted, heartless, region-wide racket whose operations Giovanni had full knowledge of and actively facilitated for his own gain, up until his conscience finally got kicked back into gear.
I am not trying to downplay Giovanni's actions; I'd imagine that he committed all sorts of crimes before Generation I. He deserves to go to prison, but "I want a new start alongside my Pokemon" is an acceptable outcome as long as he is sincere about it. If he plans to train in isolation like in HGSS (without the evil ambitions part), then that is akin to a prison with better conditions for his Pokemon.

Genocide is where I draw the line, especially when the redemption is implied to have already happened off-screen.
 
I really hate Pokemon X and Y, like after the perfect combination of engaging story and a postgame that kept me playing for hours, they decided to be lazy on the content and make X and Y being more barren than a desert. Also, Lyzandre committing suicide in order to take the player down with him, really? That's the worst way I have seen a Pokemon villain getting punished for the horrible acts. Ghetsis raging and having the shortest temper to the point he can't do anything anymore was so much better for villain punishment.
Well, in Y it's suicide, in X it's being immortal under I-don't-know-how-deep piles of rubble. If they decide to leave him there, it's a fate worse than death since I don't think his mind will last for long.
 
I haven't played XY in quite some time, so my memory of it is rather foggy. But from the things I can definitely recall,

Things I like:
  • The fact that it was in every way better than Sun/Moon. Everyone says that X/Y was the weakest in the series, but to me, that honor goes to Sun/Moon. X/Y wasn't perfect by any stretch, but at least I had fun playing that game and didn't constantly feel like rage quitting it. Unlike how I felt with Sun/Moon. I would rather replay X/Y with a new game any day over having to sit through the drawl that is Sun/Moon again.
Things I disliked:
  • The region's layout was too strikingly similar to Black/White's, which made for a rather predictable and uninspired experience. More so that X/Y came right after Black/White so I would have expected a lot more variety from its region layout. But aside from that, I otherwise had no issues with it.
  • We were never told once what the heck the headgear Lysandre wore was even for. What was up with that? Even by hazarding a guess that it was intended to steal the legendary's energy (if memory serves right), it still made no sense whatsoever.
 
Well, in Y it's suicide, in X it's being immortal under I-don't-know-how-deep piles of rubble. If they decide to leave him there, it's a fate worse than death since I don't think his mind will last for long.

Though even that's assuming he is even conscious and able to process things if his brain is a puddle of mush

We were never told once what the heck the headgear Lysandre wore was even for. What was up with that? Even by hazarding a guess that it was intended to steal the legendary's energy (if memory serves right), it still made no sense whatsoever.

It's obvious really...

glasses: he fights you on the surface of the sun, so he definitely needs sunglasses, that's basic safety
armband: it's his infinity gauntlet, because he's french ginger Thanos
cam-flys: so he can livestream the battle on twitch for donations to the team flare cause
 
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glasses: he fights you on the surface of the sun, so he definitely needs sunglasses, that's basic safety
armband: it's his infinity gauntlet, because he's french ginger Thanos
cam-flys: so he can livestream the battle on twitch for donations to the team flare cause
Ginger Thanos? I thought he was anime Doc Octopus?
 
Though even that's assuming he is even conscious and able to process things if his brain is a puddle of mush
Still pretty bad in my opinion. He might be the villain with the worst ending. I guess the competitor would be Cyrus possibly getting murdered by Giratina if you don't catch it (that's what I think it happens)?
 
Still pretty bad in my opinion. He might be the villain with the worst ending. I guess the competitor would be Cyrus possibly getting murdered by Giratina if you don't catch it (that's what I think it happens)?

Personally I would imagine that Ghetsis is the least-satisfied with his ending. Even if X-Lysandre is conscious on some level, he clearly thinks he's incapable of being wrong, so he might take some twisted sort of pride in his own demise - telling himself, "Fine, let the fools watch their world fall into chaos and see that I was right!"

Cyrus seems intrigued by the possibility of using the Distortion World itself to achieve his ends, though it's unlikely he ever will. But rather than him being murdered, I like to think he eventually just realizes that he's already gotten as close as he's going to get to the world he wants, and stays in the Distortion World, much like in Generations. He strikes me as more of a pragmatist than as someone with the kind of defiant pride of Lysandre or the ego of Ghetsis.

Everyone else reformed except for Giovanni, who went off to conquer the multiverse(!). But then you have Ghetsis, who snapped like a twig after seeing his meticulous life's work torn down twice by two complete nobody teens. The Shadow Triad make it sound like he's fallen into something like deep depression by the end, that he doesn't "have the heart anymore."
 
Everyone else reformed except for Giovanni, who went off to conquer the multiverse(!). But then you have Ghetsis, who snapped like a twig after seeing his meticulous life's work torn down twice by two complete nobody teens. The Shadow Triad make it sound like he's fallen into something like deep depression by the end, that he doesn't "have the heart anymore."
Personally, I feel like he's catatonic judging by this line:

Shadow Triad guy said:
You... Congratulations. Ghetsis won't do anything anymore... No, to be more precise, he can't do anything anymore... That's why we won't forgive you.

Judging by how he was acting immediately after Nate/Rosa beat him, it's not out of the realm of possibility.
 
Personally, I feel like he's catatonic judging by this line:

Judging by how he was acting immediately after Nate/Rosa beat him, it's not out of the realm of possibility.

I know that's been an interpretation of it for a long time, but just on my part I don't think I really feel it. Yeah, Shadowboy does say "can't," but then right before the battle, he says, "I'll win! That is the only way to regain his lost heart!", which I think implies that he's hoping to please Ghetsis enough with news of the player's defeat, so that he will be spurred back into action. If G-daddy were a vegetable, I don't think they'd be worried about reigniting his heart so much as his mind.

Besides that, just on balance, does catatonia really seem like the kind of thing Game Freak would realistically arrive at as a character ending? At least, any moreso than "the villain lost the important Pokémon battle, then threw a fit, and is now dispassionate about everything because they failed so hard?" Redemption (or the rejection of redemption as with Cyrus) are straightforward options for as morally simplistic a story as Pokémon, and a Disney Villain Death like in Lysandre's case is concise and easy to grasp, but then you've got "he literally went so insane with anger that his body locked up and he's in a rage coma." Not that I'm against people invoking Death of the Author, but that's just not the sense I get from GF's storytelling.
 
The good
+The Looker quest was great and is my favorite post game story. It has a lot of heart and good characters with decent gameplay.
+Lysandre was a nice first attempt at a more human villain, who had relationships with other people and a life outside being evil.
+I loved Sina and Dexio's antics.
+The dungeons were very creative making battling Team Flare less of a chore.
+Pokemon Amie, Super Training and the PSS were ages better than their Gen 7 counterparts.
+The Regional dex is still the best.
+The idea of travelling with friends who had different personalities and goals was nice, on paper...
+The Professor felt more involved on the story than usual.
+Making the war in the past having an influence in the present with Mega evolution was a great idea.

The bad
-Team Flare overall was kinda forgettable and their climax was meh. However, I don't think they "suck", if they would have come right after Gen 4 their reception would have been much better.
-The Mega evolution "plot" was dropped after the 3rd Gym.
-A.Z. was definitely confusing, he should have had appeared more. Also, he is the cause of the shitty post-league battle trope that appeared again in ORAS and SM with worse results.
-Gym leaders didn't have much of an involvement in anything and didn't feel "alive".
-The friends were meh, they felt very stagnant and repetitive with their personalities, and had mediocre teams. The only one who received tangible development was Shauna but she lacked everything else to be memorable.
-The legendaries are literal plot devices and their lack of a lair is disappointing.
-No Zygarde core
 
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I thought Team Flare were disappointing villains. Team Plasma in Generation V were probably the most complex and morally grey antagonists (with the exception of Ghetsis himself) that the series had ever produced. The idea of a villainous group that wasn't evil down to the last man, but had some good people in it who genuinely believed in their stated mission of protecting Pokemon, was fascinating.
By contrast, Team Flare was just dull. Their goal-- to wipe out everyone for some purpose and use a Legendary Pokemon to do it-- had already been done by Team Galactic. Generation V was a breath of fresh air from the franchise's usual formula, and an interesting deconstruction (to use TV Tropes's terminology) of the idea of using super-powered monsters to battle. We had a genuinely relatable antagonist in the form of N, who raised valid points about the ethics of capturing Pokemon and forcing them to fight for sport. And to balance that, we had Ghetsis, probably the most terrifying villain the franchise has ever produced, who was implied to have abused his own son and even his Pokemon.
Team Flare ditches the complexity in favor of giving us two-dimensional villains you just want to punch in the nuts. While villains like that can work, they usually need some sort of mitigating factor to make up for their lack of a visible motive. Giovanni was a charismatic and scheming mob boss, lurking in the shadows and living a double life as a beloved public servant. Cyrus was a ruthless mad scientist who could no longer comprehend the idea of emotion, and sought to create a universe that fit his coldly logical worldview. But Lysandre? He's a bored rich guy who wants to make a perfect world and. . . that's it.
I know Lysandre is a very popular Pokemon villain, but I just can't go along with this. Even Team Aqua and Team Magma were more convincing villains than these guys--at least they had the whole "you get to choose which side you're on" thing going for them. Team Flare were just generic, as far as Pokemon villain teams went.
 
Ever since we have started to see more footage of SwSh, I have experienced an unexpected transformation regarding XY. This is mainly because the more of Galar we see, the more I start to appreciate Kalos as a region (because to me, Kalos is basically a better looking Galar). So I want to talk about it a little!

I still obviously don't think XY is one of the best games: far from it. But I have realized it's more towards the upper middle, rather than being the rock bottom of the franchise, like I used to think.

So you know all the things I dislike about Kalos: I think it has the worst soundtrack, Villain Team, "friendly characters", and the most unmemorable Gym Leaders, Elite 4, and Champion ever.

Those are certainly big reasons to hate a Pokémon game, but now I want to give some more attention to the positives that I always kinda ignored. Here they are:

- Kalos, as a region, is pretty good, actually. It's big, and it has many locations that I have realized I am fond of: Azure Bay (my absolute favourite location in the game), Lost Hotel, Pokeball Factory, Laverre Town, Route 14 (the spooky route between Lumiose and Laverre Town), the fishing area East of Lumiose, Ambrette Town, the rocky route leading to Glittering Cave that requires riding a Rhyhorn, Glittering Cave itself, the route between Ambrette and Cyllage City, Geosenge Town, the big swampy area in the West, the Woods after Snowbelle City, etc. All of these are really great locations that I have been underrating, and that I recently realized I really like.

- Trainer Customisation is a great feature.

- Pokémon Amie is very cute, and most importantly: it has 3 addicting minigames plus a decoration feature, all of which were eliminated from its successor: Pokémon Refresh.

- I had some decent fun playing Super Training. And the Pokémon Balloons you fight there make so much more in-universe sense than Dynamax.

- Mega Evolutions is so much better than Dynamax.

- The post game Episode with Looker, is probably the best post game Episode in any Pokémon game sofar: it's better than the Delta Episode, SM's Faller crap, and USUM's RR episode. It's, grounded, it's realistic, and it's touching.

- the Battle Chateau is a good way to battle strong rivals, and earn money. Most importantly, it allows you to rematch all of the Gym Leaders.

- PR Videos is surprisingly addicting, even if it has no in-game purpose. It's just fun to make PR Videos of yourself, and experiment with different ideas and styles.

- I would also obviously praise the PSS, but I'm focusing on single player features, since multiplayer is not my thing.

- But the biggest reason I appreciate and respect XY, is that it is the only initial pair of games to not be rendered useless and/or inferior by a third version or a sequel. This automatically makes XY better in my eyes, than RG, GS, RS, DP, BW, SM, and (most likely) SwSh.

So, those are most of the positives I wanted to mention about XY. And I feel like I am finally being fair to this game.

As for the biggest criticism XY recieves, about teasing things but not showing them in-game, I think those are nothing compared to the Battle Frontier teaser in ORAS. That's what an ACTUAL teaser feels like.

Most common criticisms towards XY:

- there was no Pokémon Z/ X2W2: that's actually a positive for XY, as I explained above. It helps the game to stay relevant.

- Southern Kalos was teased but not shown: this was most likely a misunderstanding on our part. They probably just meant Southern Kalos is anything South of Lumiose City: not a teaser for a future sub-region.

- Rhyhorn Racing: you DO get to ride a Rhyhorn, and that's probably all they meant it to be. Yes, it exists as an official sport in Kalos, but that doesn't mean it was ever planned to be in XY, and then scrapped. For all we know, maybe it's something extreme little kids and teenagers are not allowed to participate in anyway.

- The pointless train station that leads nowhere: ok, that one was admittedly stupid and unnecessary, but, for a game designed around "looks", it's not hard to imagine it was simply there to illustrate how Kalos is connected.

- the unused Power Plants that we never get to visit: again, when I look at them, nothing makes me think "this was meant to be something, but they didn't have time so they left it unfinished". More likely, they were just meant to hinder us when trying to find which one is the one we are looking for.
 
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Well... define "contributed." In practical terms, most of the encounters that we have with them are later revealed to have been committed toward their overall goal. Sure, the first few brushes with them near Glittering Cave are just standard "We need that sweet, sweet honey"/"Come here you dumb Herdier"-tier goonery, but it's a Pokémon game, so that's not unusual. But their mission at the power plant is meant to steal electrical power that they can use to activate the weapon (and one of the admins later remarks that they were actually completely capable of using their own resources to create that power, but decided to harvest it from the plant anyway in order to avoid an expenditure on their end, which is a nice little illustration of how these people think - they already have more than they could possibly need, and yet they still hoard and steal essentials from the common people; this also plays into the whole give-and-take theme of the games); their invasion of the Poké Ball Factory is similar sort of project, because they need lots of Poké Balls in order to capture enough Pokémon to feed the weapon, and then the group that we battle at Frost Cavern is putting that plan into action by trying to capture the local Abomasnow.

But I mean, there's also meant to be some degree of obfuscation here. Unlike the other villain teams, who are all pretty loud and proud about what their goal is (do bad stuff! moar land! moar water! new world! separate people from Pokémon!), Team Flare speak of their intentions in considerably more veiled (albeit rather cheesy) terms. Their actions prior to the climax can't really say too much that would give the game up, because it's supposed to come as a shock when you learn the true extent of what they've been working toward.

That is one of most logical ways to explain what the heck Team Flare was doing and give them credit where it is due. I still find Team Flare to be underwhelming outside of the whole trying to commit Genocide thing.
 
So, I think the issue with XY is that it has good concepts, but poor execution. It's central themes can make for a compelling story, but the plot is just lacklustre. And I chose to focus on the plot here, because that usually decided the shape t of the game, even for Pokemon, which does not have a very complex plot usually. But that's not necessary either, good storytelling can be simple. To my surprise, BW, XY, and SuMo all had the same scenario writer, which I hadn't expected. I mention BW/SuMo here because at least on these forums the consensus seems to be that those games had a good plot. At the very least I think so. and thy're both quote different from each other, BW focuses on a region-wide, ethical dilemma, while SuMo has the relationship between a mother and her children at its crux.

So, what do I consider the central elements of XY's scenario?
  • The definition of beauty
  • Balance between life and death
  • Give-and-take
  • Compromise
Several of these tie in to Lysandre's motivations. Lysandre is definitely obsessed with beauty, and not just shallow surface-level beauty. He considers Diantha (who's appearance is crucial to her job as an actress) beautiful not just because of her looks, but because "she dedicates her life to making other people happy". He also later goes on to state that he abhors people who only take, and take what's not theirs to claim. He sees a world with finite resources, and argues that with shortage comes strive. Basically, he anticipates that conflict will ensue just like 3000 years ago, and seeks to prevent that. That is in itself not particularly evil, it's rather commendable.

His solution to this however is genocide (Thanos who). Really though, so far so good. We have an antagonist who has seen a (potential) problem, and decides to sovle it in an extreme manner. But here's the first hole in the narrative. Team Flare is made up pretty much entirely of selfish people, those who take what's not theirs. As @Esserise pointed out, they take over the Power Plant to prevent expenditure on their side, even though they have apparently plenty of resources. Team Flare is exactly what Lysandre hates, and what he strives not to be, according to his own words.

Compare this with Lusamine, who is also obsessed with beauty, who wants the world to stay the same, and is desperate to remain in control. She's convinced she knows best, and if everyone just di as she said, everything would be fine. Her solution? Freeze the pokemon she cares about. And those she cannot control, she abandons, as seen with Gladion and Lillie. Lusamine's motivations and actions align fairly well, unlike Lysandre.

Because face it, he is willing to destroy an entire region (if not more), with Flare as the only survivors, who in no way fits his definition of beauty. Of course, he does say that he "would make this world unchanging and eternal so all beauty will last forever [X]/would end the world in an instant so that beauty never fades [Y]". So he's willing to go to extreme measures to keep the world from becoming a 'mess'. Rather than killing everyone outright (which granted, would keep everyone from changing), wouldn't it be more logical for him to grant everyone immortality? We only have AZ and Eternal Floette as examples, but neither seem to have aged much physically over the past 3000 years, so Lysandre wanting to affect the entire region in such a way (which he considers perfect at the time of the game) doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

Alternatively, what if he used Team Flare to lure out those people too selfish and 'ugly' to fit his ideal worldview and use the ultimate weapon to kill them? That could have worked too, I think. And the PC, good person that they are, seeks to prevent that, cause going around murdering those whom you don't like is a Bad Thing. And in the post-game you could have Team Flare members trying to atone for their crimes, make em do community work or something.

And lastly, something I didn't address but does feel relevant, is Lysandre's elitism. He's convinced he's a chosen one, someone who should shape the world to be a better place. He similarly thinks the PC is such a chosen one, because they received a Pokedex from Sycamore. He even says "the people and Pokémon chosen to make the world better must work tirelessly to achieve this goal", so clearly in his mind certain people are more fit to 'rule' than others, but what the conditions are for this remains unclear. At the least, he can claim royal lineage, but is a pokedex that special?

Furthermore, the problems he foresees happening seem moot anyway? The region shows no shortage of anything really. The only example I can think of of people claiming more than they need (besides Team Flare), is the PokeFlute event, where the Parfum Place's owner takes the Poke Flute because he can (if iirc Shabboneau Castle's owner had debts) and charges an admission fee to Parfum Palace because he's of the opinion you can never have too much money. And there's of course the situation with the Mega ring, but that's only temporary cause the Rival obtains one later as well.

The above is not just exclusive to XY though. RSE/ORAS have a similar issue where you just don' t really encounter any of the problems Team Magma/Aqua sees.

Originally, I had wanted to go into Diantha, the friends, and the box legendaries as well, but this is already rather long, so I'll leave it for now.
 
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@Dieter

I enjoyed your post, but I think the thing about Lysandre is that his efforts are supposed to be myopic and contradictory. "Divine right" of the sort that Lysandre seems to believe in is a rubbish way of determining leadership, because it concentrates far too much power onto an individual without subjecting them to any system of accountability. "Chosen" by whom, indeed - while Prof. Sycamore may be in the best and most informed position when it comes to deciding which Trainers he'll bequeath his Pokédexes to, who "chose" Lysandre to remake the world according to his ideals? That's far too big of an issue to be decided by one person alone. One person alone is riddled with their own flaws, just as AZ was in the distant past. However much good he may have done for Kalos before the war; however good of a king he may have been, ultimately he was too vindictive to be trusted with so much power, and ended up turning his technology on the very society he'd helped usher into prosperity, and to no end, because although Floette was revived, she immediately abandoned him.

Lysandre is a parallel to AZ, his ancestor - they both use impressive technology to help beautify Kalos, but they also both end up feeling emotionally wounded or betrayed to the point that they make a selfish decision that runs counter to that benevolence. In Lysandre's case, he became frustrated at the lack of visible results from his philanthropic efforts, and cast the blame onto the "fools" whom he saw as only taking without giving in return (which isn't entirely wrong, but could also point to a certain sense of entitlement on Lysandre's part - he can't act selflessly without expecting it to be reciprocated?). Now, Sycamore mentions after the climax that he wished he'd spoken to Lysandre sooner and brought his attention to his ego. That, of course, is Lysandre's big flaw. He has these big, high ideas about beauty and charity, and likes to think that he sees things beyond the surface level, but he really doesn't. He's too wrapped up in his own viewpoint to consider other perspectives. He says that what makes Diantha "beautiful" is her commitment to making people happy, because that's what he likes to think he's doing too, and yet he completely steamrolls her viewpoint when she tries to explain why she'd rather grow old and change than stay young forever. He still thinks his way is the right way. Similarly, with the rest of Team Flare, Lysandre sees the world as being divided into two groups - givers and takers. From his perspective, the reason for assigning such an exorbitant entry fee to Team Flare is likely intended to ensure that his recruits truly "care" about saving the world, because only "givers" would/could offer so much of what they have to help further a cause like his. But that's where his blind spot comes in - because he has this simplistic notion of the "charitable" gesture itself being a sign of selflessness, he misses the substance and ends up surrounding himself with selfish aristocrats who just had mountains of cash lying around and loved the rhetoric of making the world "beautiful." Because of Lysandre's ego and privilege, his actions are doomed to become self-defeating. He's Mr. "Let Them Eat Cake."
 
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@Esserise thanks for covering that, because Lysandre's ego is indeed very important to his characterisation. And I don't think my qualms are so much with him actually. You can actually see how he'd come to his viewpoint, all the info is provided. so, then what instead makes XY's plot lacklustre?

Maybe the issue is that the problems Lysandre sees are fairly abstract to begin with, but this isn't helped by the fact you don't even see any of these problems in-game, as I mentioned. Part of Lysandre's motivation is of course preventing Kalos even getting to the point of war over shortage, but there is nothing that even implies that might ever happen. It's the opposite almost. I just found another example of this, despite the Pokeball Factory being robbed, there won't be a shortage, according to Malva (as newscaster). Sure, saying that is all fine and well, possibly as prevention of mass-panic or people buying them in bulk and hoarding, but you can continue to buy as many as you want after. It would have driven Lysandre's point home much more if there actually were no more pokeballs sold for part of the plot. At the same time, having your friend group share balls with each other would already illustrate the alternative Shauna and the rival later pose during the confrontation with Lysandre.

And if AZ is supposed to be Lysandre's foil, I'm not sure how good of a job he's doing there. Both come to the conclusion that the only way to solve conflict is to destroy everyone who is part of that conflict, and as we see with AZ, he regrets this afterwards (if only because Floette leaves him). I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this
 
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