What would you have done to improve or to make the plot of Pkm SM more interesting, especially in regards to Lillie and Nebby? :]
Well, “interesting” is subjective. What’s more interesting to me might not be more interesting overall. However, some things that I do feel would pretty objectively improve the narrative quality would be:
Let Gladion actually have a real role in the narrative --- Gladion appears twice prior to the climax: once when you first meet him, and then again to give you a little warning about Lillie and Cosmog/Nebby as some not-subtle foreshadowing about the climax. The next time you see him is when it’s time to infiltrate Aether Paradise, and then once that segment is over he stops being relevant to the plot despite the fact that the entire story centers around his family.This is a mistake.Gladion should have been a far more involved character. This is his family, he should be there. To begin with, not only did severely reducing his screen time make his “development” rushed (and thus not really development at all---more like an unexplained flip to being somewhat nicer (i.e. kind of nice at all)), but it also gave the player no real reason to care about him if they didn’t already. I had a bias toward Gladion since the moment his character was announced, so of course I was thrilled to see him every time he showed up. But a player who didn’t have that prior attachment wouldn’t really have a reason to care, because they were never given a chance to care. Both of these things could be rectified by having Gladion show up more often, earlier on. They don’t have to introduce him on Melemele Island, but introduce him earlier on Akala Island, and have him make repeated appearances on Ula’ula Island as well. Let him battle the player multiple times. Let him show up to either stop or even assist Team Skull (given that he’s supposed to be an “enforcer.”) Show him interacting with Plumeria and give them a (platonic, but that shouldn’t be necessary to state) relationship, given that she’s supposed to look out for the younger members of Team Skull like her siblings. Let us actually see more of Gladion throughout the plot so that we have a reason to care, and show him slowly growing and developing to a point where he can start to trust others and form friendships, just like Lillie.And most importantly of all, have him present at the climax! Again, for fucksake, the plot centers around his sister and his mother. He should have been in Ultra Space. He had far more reason to be there than the player did. Let Gladion play the other flute! Have it be a twin duet, Lillie and Gladion playing the flutes in harmony after spending the game fixing their relationship and growing closer again after two years apart. Let that be a beautiful moment to represent via music just how much they’ve come together again, and have fallen back in sync. Let them confront their abusive mother together, lending each other strength, being there for each other. Let them hug, for fucksake, and let them to go to Kanto together, too. Don’t just ship Gladion off to Aether Paradise because you’re afraid some spotlight will be taken away from the PC. The PC doesn’t need any spotlight. The PC will be just fine watching these two siblings come together to support each other again, I promise.
Give Plumeria an actual role in the narrative --- Plumeria did fuck all for the plot, and as much as I love her, you could remove her and replace her with a generic Skull grunt and the game would turn out the exact same way. Plumeria should have been the one to confront Guzma at Aether Paradise, calling him out on the absolutely horrid way he treats the Skull grunts, and the way he sold them all---including her---out to Lusamine in order to be the Aether Foundation’s scapegoats and lapdogs. Show her calling him out on this, show her arguing with him about it, show them battling over it. Instead of having the player battle Guzma again, have Plumeria hold him off while the player et al go on to confront Lusamine. Plumeria was supposed to be a Skull admin and the “big sister” of Team Skull, but she was never allowed to do that, and that’s nonsense. Let her play the role she was literally created to play.
Let Hau develop as a character on-screen --- Hau was pretty static throughout the game, sadly, mostly just existing to be the cheerful, friendly rival that Nintendo has been giving us for over a decade now. And that’s fine---I have no qualms with cheerful characters---but it’s a bit disappointing because I would have liked for him to have a more fleshed out character arc. We get flashes of this in certain reactions of his throughout the game (e.g. his reaction to Gladion’s second appearance is very reminiscent of how a kid acts when his bully has just appeared, and he actually scowls when you beat him outside of the League in the last required battle), but for the most part we’re told about Hau’s development rather than shown it. This is even true when it comes to his goal of beating Hala. We know he finally beat his grandfather due to the fact that he’s a title challenger, but we don’t get to see it, and we don’t get to see a real effect on his character given that we only get a couple lines out of him and he still sees himself as weak because he can’t beat the almighty PC. I would have liked---and think the game would have benefited from---giving Hau his own subplot running throughout the game, ideally if it tied into the main plot (e.g. maybe Hau is drawn to the Aether Foundation because he wants to make a name for himself separate from anything his grandfather has done and “Miss Lusamine” has assured him that she can help him do that, and they seem like good guys so he believes them, and that puts him at odds with Lillie and Gladion when they try very firmly to tell him that their mother cannot be trusted, and it’s this whole huge emotional ordeal where Hau has to a.) realize what he’s done, b.) decide what’s important to him, c.) realize he can be strong on his own, et cetera. It could have been cool, but alas, Game Freak did pretty much nothing with Hau and let him be a mostly static character instead).
Professor Burnet should have been the professor with the most plot focus --- I don’t really have anything against Kukui, but his specialization is in pokémon attacks due to Game Freak’s need to heavily advertise their newest game mechanic. That has nothing to do with the overall plot, especially not when compared to his wife, who is actively studying different dimensions in hyper space. Professor Burnet should have been the one repeatedly meeting up with the player, investigating the plot happenings, and---ideally---confronting Lusamine later on, in order to deliver a hardcore “the reason you suck” speech in defense of the children, considering Lillie herself is the one who said that Burnet has been like a real mother to her (whereas Lusamine has not). Kukui’s subplot about wanting to revolutionize Alola is cool and all, and that can stay, but it’s really irrelevant compared to everything else going on, and reducing Burnet to just one main appearance and a handful of cameos after is a crime. She should have had much heavier involvement in the plot considering her specialization was actually relevant.
Overhaul the Aether Foundation, Team Skull, Lusamine et cetera completely --- There are too many things that I would fix here in order to just put it in one item, but essentially:
The Aether Foundation needs to have been founded by Lusamine, not by her father (or grandfather, whatever it was), because I’m goddamn fucking sick of women in this series inheriting their professions from their older male relatives. Good on Burnet for avoiding that pitfall (thus far), but she also had barely any appearances. Lusamine makes the second lady I can think of off the top of my head that did fall right into it (with the first and most conspicuous being Professor Juniper), even if we’re only told that via an NPC.
The Aether Foundation need to be indisputably the villains, pretending to be good, intentionally scapegoating Team Skull and using them as a smokescreen. None of this, “well, they were infected by neurotoxins!” nonsense, nu-uh. Team Skull are not good villains, the Aether Foundation have the potential to be perfect, and “well, they were really good all along save for a few bad apples, and Team Skull were really criminals” is boring and a complete waste of potential. Bad Game Freak, bad.
More focus---like, much heavier---focus needs to be put on scientific (and dare I say, alchemical) experimentation rather than “omg I just want pretty things ♥” We get a little taste with Type: Null’s creation and the experiments conducted on Cosmog in order to open Ultra Space, but I want the entire plot to be much more heavily drowned in the alchemy that we’ve been leading to for multiple generations now. In particular, the Aether Foundation being a scientific villainous organization disguised as a conservationist organization would be far more interesting than what we actually got. More to the point, Lusamine having actual universal goals beyond “I just want to exist with everything I deem beautiful ♥” would make her a far more frightening and interesting villain than what we got. I’m fine with her liking beautiful things, that can still be worked in, but villains such as Cyrus and Ghetsis got to have universal goals stretching beyond petty satisfactions. I would have liked the same thing for our first female Big Bad.
Make it really, really obvious that Team Skull is being scapegoated. To be honest, I feel like the pieces are all there---they steal from berry fields and are dirt poor, i.e., they are literally starving to death and yet Alolans are still calling them criminals, what the fuck---but it was brushed away in order to say “oh no, they’re actually criminals and need to be disbanded guys” instead of actually trying to help them and revealing that the precious and pristine Aether Foundation was really good all along. I would have really liked to see Team Skull get some help and attention, especially since Nanu is right there and could easily provide it if someone would just provide him with some help with his chronic depression. For godsake, someone really needs to do something about Ula’ula Island, for real. (And if anyone is wondering, no, I’m not surprised that the Alolan populace can see Team Skull suffering and still call them criminals, considering the fact that police officer and detective NPCs in the game repeatedly insist that there’s never any crime in Alola despite shenanigans like Team Skull’s/the Aether Foundation’s obvious villainy. Alola seems like a tropical paradise, but between their religious oligarchy, the fact that their resident professor wants to stage a political revolution, and their criminalization of underprivileged youth + lack of will to do anything about actual crimes in their community, they’ve got some problems, son.)
Lusamine should have died --- Full stop, I want the bitch dead. Nebby should have killed her outright. Pokémon has implied death before (see: Lysandre last gen), and they can do it again, especially when the person dying is a child abusing cow. At the very least, her children shouldn’t have been condemned to look after her. Neither twin did anything to deserve that awful fate. (“But she can’t atone for what she did if she’s dea---” Do I look like I care? Do I? No. I don’t. I want her to die, go to Hell, and then rot there. She had her chance to be a good mom the first time around, and she wasted it, and she doesn’t get another. The twins are going to be adopted by Kukui and Burnet and that is that.)
Lillie should have been the one to catch Nebby --- This speaks for itself and I’ve talked about it before, so I don’t need to go into detail here. She was robbed for the sake of the player, and I think that was a mistake.
Lillie and Gladion should have gone to Kanto together --- Again, I’ve talked about it before, don’t need to do it again. (Also, must they go to Kanto? Johto is better, I’m js.)
