Who do you think is the plot twist villain for ScarVio?

[Kit Chan]

The Pokemon Company for devolving a series of well made and well loved games into a soulless hype train cashgrab.

 

[Adelon]

The Pokemon Company for devolving a series of well made and well loved games into a soulless hype train cashgrab.

Pokemon has always been kind of a cash brag, though, a very fun cash grab but still a cash grab nevertheless.

Edit: I meant grab not brag but I'll leave that typo in any way.

 

[RileyXY1]

I'm not thinking that Penny is evil. I think that she'll be the Lillie/Marnie of this game, in that she has some connections to the antagonists, but isn't outright evil herself.

 

[Enigmatic Espurr]

Who's to say writing fake out villains hasn't gotten better after two (maybe three taking Malva into consideration) generations. Especially since this is a "younger staff" as apposed to a "senior staff" game.

What if the villian is someone who people least expects this time, both meta and in the game. Like I'm still really thinking it's the PE teacher because everyone seems to not expect her. I mean like...who's going to expect a nice Fighting type specialist in a league backed organization to have a darkside.

I got to admit, Gamefreak had certainly gotten better at this trope. When I saw advertisements for PLA, I was definitely expecting Cyllene or Kamado to be the villain, and was actually pretty surprised to find out that they weren’t.

Now you got me thinking though, since it actually would make a lot of sense for this Fighting-type specialist to be the mastermind from a narrative standpoint. I mean, she’s barely being featured in the trailers and stuff, to the point where we don’t even know her name, meaning that player may not put her under as much scrutiny as any potential decoys and more featured characters. There’s also the fact that Fighting-types are, for the most part, very heroic, making the fact that a Fighting specialist the villain would be more surprising than one that uses Dark, Poison—y’know, the two types that just about EVERY villain team uses—heck, even Fairy, as fairies in folklore could be amoral tricksters.

Plus, while we have had 3 members of the various leagues be in cahoots with evil teams in the games, Team Yell wasn’t the main threat of SwSh, Malva was only involved in Team Flare, not actually leading it, and the twist with Giovanni wasn’t “Holy toast! This well-known Gym Leader’s the mysterious leader of Team Rocket!” As much as it was “Holy toast! This well-known leader of Team Rocket’s the mysterious gym leader!” In other words, a gym-leader/E4 being the mastermind wouldn’t be as easy to guess since it wouldn’t be too suspected.

don't we have 6 twist villains at this point? (N, Colress, Lysandre, Lusamine, Rose and Volo) though i guess my memory of BW2 is a bit hazy; it could be colress wasn't actually a twist

I haven’t played either of the Unova games, so I can’t say for sure as I’ve only gotten into the franchise about 3 years ago. But when you put it that way, it does make me wonder. In that case, that would mean it’s been 7, even 8 if you count Malva being revealed as being in Team Flare in X&Y’s postgame. Darn, maybe even 9 if Zinnia counts, seeing as how she basically helped Team Aqua/Magma almost total Hoenn. Was GIOVANNI even mentioned prior to the release of Gen 1??? My head’s starting to hurt, lol

 

[Cute Charm]

I got to admit, Gamefreak had certainly gotten better at this trope. When I saw advertisements for PLA, I was definitely expecting Cyllene or Kamado to be the villain, and was actually pretty surprised to find out that they weren’t.

Now you got me thinking though, since it actually would make a lot of sense for this Fighting-type specialist to be the mastermind from a narrative standpoint. I mean, she’s barely being featured in the trailers and stuff, to the point where we don’t even know her name, meaning that player may not put her under as much scrutiny as any potential decoys and more featured characters. There’s also the fact that Fighting-types are, for the most part, very heroic, making the fact that a Fighting specialist the villain would be more surprising than one that uses Dark, Poison—y’know, the two types that just about EVERY villain team uses—heck, even Fairy, as fairies in folklore could be amoral tricksters.

Plus, while we have had 3 members of the various leagues be in cahoots with evil teams in the games, Team Yell wasn’t the main threat of SwSh, Malva was only involved in Team Flare, not actually leading it, and the twist with Giovanni wasn’t “Holy toast! This well-known Gym Leader’s the mysterious leader of Team Rocket!” As much as it was “Holy toast! This well-known leader of Team Rocket’s the mysterious gym leader!” In other words, a gym-leader/E4 being the mastermind wouldn’t be as easy to guess since it wouldn’t be too suspected.

Exactly. I mean nobody expected the guy that looks like Cynthia to be the villian, but everyone expects the namesake of the future evil team.

But yeah, unless the entire faculty and therefore the E4 is corrupt, the PE teacher just seems like the odd one out to me. Nothing is really stopping her from being the twist villian. Especially not past games or even the extended canon with the gym leaders and E4 members being corrupt in Adventures.

Also, the thing with Giovanni is that it was known from the start he was hiding something. His official gym leader art plastered in all of the in-box mini guides had him in shadow. But I suppose if you played the game or saw the anime you could put 2 and 2 together that the 8th gym leader was secretly Giovanni.

Gen 2 didn't have that sort of twist, nor did the original Gen 3. It wasn't even until Legends Arceus did Team Galactic retroactively become a twist villains since why would an old organization dedicated to research and exploration turn into what it did 100 years later.

Gen 5, despite what people have been saying, didn't have a twist villian. N was a twist in the sense that we as players didn't know he was being used by his adopted father. Other than that, the game's opening made it clear Plasma was some sort of cult. Coreless struck me as just another scientist working for an evil team.

I still think it was Gen 6 on that we started getting the "twist villians" even if they weren't implemented very well in the beginning. Because all Malva was was a news anchor and an ex-team member. We never saw her do anything with Team Flare.

Lusamine and Rose were really the first major twist villians because their games respective evil teams were just misunderstood millennials and rowdy sports fans. Going by the truck, it seems like that's going to be the theme going forward with the standard evil teams. For the twist villians though...you'd think they'd just get more sneaky with them because of it.

 

[Adelon]

Based on Khu's latest tweets it appears that my suspicions about Penny were correct.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Gen 5, despite what people have been saying, didn't have a twist villian. N was a twist in the sense that we as players didn't know he was being used by his adopted father. Other than that, the game's opening made it clear Plasma was some sort of cult. Coreless struck me as just another scientist working for an evil team.

N was very much a twist villain. we meet him pretty much at the start, but we don't discover that he's leading the evil team until around the midway point. the fact that the twist didn't come all the way at the end doesn't mean it's not a twist.

 

[Hellope]

N was very much a twist villain. we meet him pretty much at the start, but we don't discover that he's leading the evil team until around the midway point. the fact that the twist didn't come all the way at the end doesn't mean it's not a twist.

Bruh there’s literally a cutscene at the start that shows you he’s with plasma. Before the main menu

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

I think Penny will be the misunderstood main antagonist, but has a redemption arc either during the climax of the main campaign or "post-game".

 

[nickdt]

I think Penny will be the misunderstood main antagonist, but has a redemption arc either during the climax of the main campaign or "post-game".

So... just like Guzma then.

 

[Cute Charm]

I think Penny will be the misunderstood main antagonist, but has a redemption arc either during the climax of the main campaign or "post-game".

Yeah. I mean I wouldn't put it past the whole Khu saying she's "a bitch" to just mean she has the same chracter traits as Guzma or something.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

Yeah. I mean I wouldn't put it past the whole Khu saying she's "a bitch" to just mean she has the same chracter traits as Guzma or something.

WAIT was that in the spoilers thread??? Let me take a look lol

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

So... just like Guzma then.

I mean, the tragic backstory of the misunderstood adolescent isn't unique to Guzma and is a pretty common trope. but I think there will be stark differences. I wouldn't be surprised if her story arc goes in a different direction all together.

 

[Adelon]

WAIT was that in the spoilers thread??? Let me take a look lol

It might be a "mistreatment-induced betrayal" sort of situation with the villain team. Apparently, they are kids that have been bullied so much that they turned to the dark side and became a gang or something like that. And Penny is evidently their ringleader if we've correctly interpreted those admittedly vague tweets from Khu. If this is true then it would make much more sense they gave Eeevelutions to a likely misunderstood and potentially redeemable antagonist as opposed to somebody genuinely evil, like say, Lysandre.

 

[Greninjaman]

It might be a "mistreatment-induced betrayal" sort of situation with the villain team. Apparently, they are kids that have been bullied so much that they turned to the dark side and became a gang or something like that. And Penny is evidently their ringleader if we've correctly interpreted those admittedly vague tweets from Khu. If this is true then it would make much more sense they gave Eeevelutions to a likely misunderstood and potentially redeemable antagonist as opposed to somebody genuinely evil, like say, Lysandre.

Or she is simply a victim due to being the daughter of one of the teachers in the school.

 

[Cute Charm]

Regardless of all the spoilers, I don't think Penny is going to be the twist villian. Maybe just part of the standard team...but not the Lusamine or Rose of the generation.

 

[Norzan]

Bruh there’s literally a cutscene at the start that shows you he’s with plasma. Before the main menu

Also i'm pretty sure early on the game outright says he's affiliated with Plasma (or makes the connection really obvious), so not really the midway point. Plus, the game really makes no attempt in trying to make him into a villain since the game is basically screaming to the player that Ghetsis is the actual villain.

 

[RileyXY1]

Regardless of all the spoilers, I don't think Penny is going to be the twist villian. Maybe just part of the standard team...but not the Lusamine or Rose of the generation.

Yeah. I don't think that they would want a Pokemon as iconic as Eevee used by a villain. Pikachu has never been used by a villain before, and its only antagonistic roles have been in the anime, and always as a rival to Ash's own Pikachu. Pikachu wasn't even seen as a Shadow Pokemon in either Colosseum or XD.

 

[Dorothy]

I pegged Clavell for a villain the moment I saw him.

 

[WinterDoggo]

When I saw penny, especially with the detail that she rarely comes to school for an unspecified reason, I thought she'd make for an interesting villain. Admittedly, this would be because a good friend and I previously came up with an idea for a rival who turned out to be an evil team leader, and she could very easily fit the bill for some of our thoughts so I wanted to see it happen.

I think it could be fun. We'll see when gen 9 comes out!