A whole-ass month later and I'm still not over Spinel.
I know there are people that are upset we didn't delve deeper into his backstory, but not only is he not the focal point of the story, what we did get with him in that last episode was a masterclass in "Show, Don't Tell" via a visual medium. All you have to do is look at this kid:
And you get it immediately. Shy, introverted, bookish. Up late at night reading and studying (almost certainly had a scientific interest even back then), and Eevee is his only friend because he feels he doesn't fit in among his peers. We never hear him speak, and he likely doesn't speak much anyway and keeps his thoughts to himself...much like Liko at the start.
In fact, that's not the only parallel. Eevee evolves into Umbreon by looking at the moon.
The full moon was used to demonstrate what the bond between a trainer and Pokémon could accomplish, and it's the same here. Umbreon is an affection evolution, with Eevee evolving into it at night if it has a strong bond with its trainer (Espeon is the same case, but at day).
However, Spinel misunderstood.
What is established very firmly about Spinel is that he is a scientist of the most hardcore atheistic type. If something cannot be physically seen and unambiguously demonstrated in the most obvious and visible of terms, then he will simply not believe in its existence.
So when his Eevee evolved into Umbreon, the factor he could not see - the bond between her and him - went right over his head. He only focused on what he actually saw right in front of him: his small, weak partner Pokémon transforming into something bigger and stronger. And if she could do that, then a small, weak person like him could do it too. Only the aspect of transformation to a state of higher power left an impression on him. And that became his life's mission from that point on: transform himself to the highest state of power there is.
This is why we've seen him have a particular hard-on for power and strength from early on:
Joining Gibeon, seeking Laqua and the Laquium, and of course the entire Strong Sphere project...it was all in the pursuit of making himself more powerful. Through Strong Spheres becoming as indispensable to trainers as Poké Balls, he would become the de-facto most powerful Pokémon Trainer in the world through being their creator and distributor...and then, the effects of the Laquium from the Strong Spheres would ultimately bring him power over all the most powerful Pokémon, just as it had with the Five Six Heroes. He said as much himself:
People, Pokémon....the idea of all of them kneeling before him and being subservient to him, the former weak little boy with no friends but an Eevee...that is ultimately what drives Spinel.
But of course, the more someone who feels intense desire like Spinel (or Gibeon before him) stays in proximity to Laquium, the more it drives them mad with obsession for the stuff. Spinel ultimately ends up conflating himself, or rather what he desires to become, with the Laquium.
To the point of saying he'd die to protect it since at least he'd leave it behind as a legacy.
And gleefully seizing his chance to actually merge with it.
And then of course we got his battle with Liko, where that childhood flashback to Eevee's evolution occurred. I think, upon having that flashback, it did strike Spinel that maybe he was wrong and Liko was right: bonds do exist, it was his bond that caused Eevee to become more powerful, and perhaps he would have become more powerful like he wanted simply through continuing to strengthen the bond between him and Umbreon rather than via the Laquium.
He could accept this epiphany, or deny it. He could find his redemption, or his damnation.
And, well, we know how that ended up.
Spinel sought to have everything, to become greater than that weak child who only had a Pokémon friend and nothing more. But in the end, he not only failed to secure the power he chased after, but he lost that Pokémon friend, lost the one thing that he had to begin with.
In Spinel's last scene, Umbreon visits the prison window to check in on him, to see if there's any sign of repentance. But instead Spinel is unresponsive, consumed by self-pity. So Umbreon leaves and we see the full moon in the sky at a far distance, calling back to Liko's words from the first episode: the moon is so far away, and now Spinel can never reach it.
This truly was among the most monstrously vile yet also tragically human villains that the franchise has ever seen. A round of applause for the show's staff for such a superb creation.
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