A Decade Later, These Pokemon Games with an 87 Metascore Are Still the Darkest in the Mainline Franchise

Pokemon Sun and Moon will celebrate their 10th anniversary this year. The games that launched Generation 7 of Pokemon are the most radical departures the main series has ever made from its core formula. There are no Gyms, with the game instead following the player as they undergo Alola’s “Island Challenge.” HMs were finally ditched, being replaced with Ride Pokemon. Plus, Alola was more plot-heavy than even Generation 5. And with that heavier focus on story, Pokemon Sun and Moon tackle themes that make them the darkest mainline games to this day.

On paper, Sun and Moon are about the player character as they undergo the Island Challenge. In reality, Sun and Moon tell the tale of the Aether Foundation family: Lillie, Gladion, and Lusamine. While the game is from the player’s perspective, they’re mostly just a viewpoint character for Lillie’s story — a journey of a young, abused child finding her voice and standing up for herself against her mother, who might be the darkest villain in the mainline games yet.

The Twisted Tale of the Aether Family

Before the events of Sun and Moon, a young girl named Lillie and her brother Gladion grew up in Aether Paradise, a sanctuary for hurt Pokemon managed by the Aether Foundation. After their father disappeared during his research into interdimensional portals known as “Ultra Wormholes,” their mother Lusamine (the Aether Foundation’s president) threw herself into research on how to bring him back. It’s through this research that Lusamine grew more and more obsessed with the Ultra Beasts, which were Pokemon that came from the same kinds of Ultra Wormholes that took her husband away.

Eventually, Lusamine’s motives shifted. She wasn’t researching the Ultra Beasts anymore to find her husband — she wanted to meet them herself because she loved them so much. With her new priority being these alien Pokemon, the once-loving mother started micromanaging her children down to the clothes they wore and lashing out at them for not living up to her standards of beauty. Eventually, her kids ran away, each taking a Pokemon with them: Lillie with a Cosmog she named Nebby, and Gladion with a Type: Null.

Lusamine’s genuine desire to protect Pokemon also disappeared; she was completely okay with letting Nebby die as long as its power could open the Ultra Wormholes for her. There’s also the frozen Pokemon collection she keeps in her inner chambers, which is a frightening image that the player is outright shown instead of just told about.

At the climax of the Aether Foundation storyline, Lusamine uses Nebby to find a way into Ultra Space, letting several other Ultra Beasts loose into Alola in the process. And once Lusamine gets to her destination, she just…doesn’t do anything. She simply wants to stay there, surrounded by the Nihilego that she went insane over. She went to all this trouble and put her kids through so much just so she could go hang out in another dimension. After a battle where she fuses with a Nihilego, Lusamine falls into a coma, but not before showing hints of lucidity and love for Lillie for the first time in years.

Lillie and Gladion Watched as a Loved One Became a Threat

Image via The Pokemon Company

Lillie and Gladion’s mistreatment by Lusamine was already bad, but there’s an extra layer of darkness to it when considering how she wasn’t always that way. These kids had to watch as what should have been the most trustworthy adult in their lives, their parent, became a Pokemon villain they had to escape from. Lusamine betrayed her own children by going down the path she did, and even worse, it was when they would have needed her the most: after they lost their father.

Late in the game, Lillie tells the player about a happy memory she had with Lusamine. One time, Lillie went out to play in the rain. Lusamine ran after her in surprise, forgetting to even grab an umbrella. But instead of taking Lillie back inside, the two danced in the rain like the movie Lillie had been imitating. The two of them got sick, but Lusamine let little Lillie sleep in the same bed as her while they recovered. Lillie was so happy to have this time with her mom that she kept waking Lusamine up to make sure it wasn’t all just a dream. It was after that memory that Lusamine’s Ultra Beast obsession began, marking her shift from a loving mother to one of the most infamous female villains in JRPGs. It adds more tragedy that Lillie can remember the times when she felt safe with her mom.

When the player actually gets to see Lusamine interact with her kids, she has nothing but harsh words for them at first. She says things like “I don’t have any children,” calls her kids “wretched,” and even tries to make Lillie think that if Nebby dies, it’ll be her fault for not obeying her mom:

You’re right… it probably will die. Because I’m going to force it to use its power whether it wants to or not! … Maybe if you really had been a daughter to me, I would have listened to you… Too bad.

Lusamine insisting that she’s the real victim because her kids were fleeing her abuse could be used in the dictionary entry for “victim blaming.” But despite it all, when given a chance to save Lusamine, the kids go for it. She’s the only family they have left, and they remember the days before she changed. Still, given the bold build-up it’s worth asking whether the story handles the Aether family’s conclusion well.

Lusamine and Family-Friendly Retribution

Image via DeNA

In Sun and Moon specifically, Lillie takes it upon herself to help Lusamine recover from the lasting effects of exposure to Nihilego. It’s explained that either through Nihilego injecting toxins into her, fusing with Nihelego, or being exposed to so much Z-Power, Lusamine’s having residual health issues of some kind that need treatment. So, Lillie decides to go to Kanto and become a Pokemon Trainer so that she can meet Bill (the only other known human to fuse with a Pokemon) and get his help with Lusamine’s condition. While Lusamine is out of commission and Lillie leaves Alola, Gladion becomes the Aether Foundation president.

It’s implied that Lusamine and her kids will fully reconcile at some point after the game. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon ran with this idea, as did Pokemon Masters EX, by never having Lusamine fall into a coma in the first place and generally softening her words and actions towards her kids to make her more “misguided” and less “abusive.” Regardless, this woman caused her kids so much pain in every universe, so she arguably gets off too easy by having her kids take care of her.

Image via The Pokemon Company

It’s important to consider that Lusamine’s kids take full ownership of helping their mother after everything is said and done; the player never sees anyone tell the pair that as Lusamine’s kids, they have a duty to help her. Filial duty is a part of it, as Gladion mentions at one point that she’s still their mom, but the fact that the kids are the ones who decide to help Lusamine does give them some autonomy in the situation. In a game with a higher age rating, there might have been a little more discussion on how Lusamine’s presence could affect her kids going forward, but as dark as the games had been, they could only go so far before they got to be too heavy for the target audience. It helps that she wasn’t the first evil team leader to get redeemed, either; Archie, Maxie, and N all did it first.

The Limits of a Large General Audience Make Some Tropes a Necessary Evil

Image via The Pokemon Company

While it’s true that kids’ media often underestimates its audience, there are still themes that would be too heavy to explain to the series’ main demographic of young children. Having Lillie and Gladion officially emancipate themselves from Lusamine would be a lot to explain to a 6-year-old that’s only playing to see colorful monsters beat each other up. It’s easier for someone that age to understand that “sometimes parents are at fault” and “forgiveness is important” than the legalities of foster care. Any more mature themes are just a bonus to the older players, not the main focus.

In short, Lusamine’s story would’ve been better if, after the fusion incident, it explored the fallout of her previous actions and what exactly reconciliation would look like between a parent and the kids they’ve hurt so much — or if the best option would’ve been leaving her children’s lives. But even the best Pokemon stories aim to have a level of accessibility to broader audiences who aren’t playing for drama and want to get back to the gameplay. Lusamine’s story went very dark and very far for a mainline Pokemon game, but the sheer size of the franchise means that to keep things family-friendly, Game Freak had to ease up on the tone and give it a happy ending.

Systems

Released

November 18, 2016

ESRB

E

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

• 

•