This is such a minor detail that I may be the only person getting hung up on it, but you know what?
The way Jovi interacts with Ardos breaks my heart. And here's why.
Jovi calls Ardos "Mr. Cool Man" and later refers to him as a "nice person". She's in awe of witnessing him and his Pokémon in action and thinks he's a nice guy. I've talked about how the game sprinkles in hints that Ardos is a bad person early on in a different post, but Jovi is a young child; she can't spot those hints and fully buys into the persona Ardos is putting on.
This little girl thinks the man who will go on to try to kill her brother is nice and cool. Because she's a precious baby who doesn't know yet how cruel the world can be, especially with Cipher in it. Can you imagine how much it would shock and disturb her to hear what happened on Citadark Isle?
Man. I just... ouch. This is heartbreaking and cruel. And I love that a game that may also be played by children Jovi's age tackles this theme and teaches that adults who seem cool and nice... sometimes aren't.
On a fundamental level, I see Wes as the ultimate representation of the desert and of Orre itself, both a product and personification of it. Tough, scrappy, independent, determined, stubborn, resilient, strong, willful, persistent, troubled past, surviving against all odds, rough exterior with a heart of gold (quite literally in Orre's case, if the mining is anything to go by).
For Cipher, Wes is "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you" made flesh. The desert, Orre itself, is gazing back at them after they attempted to bring it under control and exploit it - as they also try with Wes, made explicit when Nascour mentions the possibility of him becoming a Cipher show-battle trainer (though to his credit, Nascour quickly realizes this is not an option anymore with Wes)
Admission time. I've been so focused on making sense of Venus just randomly dropping the Subway Key after successfully "duping" Wes and saying that she won't let him and Rui use the Shadow Liner and coming up with more narratively interesting answers than "plot convenience" and "video game villain does something dumb" that I was genuinely wondering what she even meant by having duped him.
If I'm the only idiot here, and you're now rolling your eyes like, "OMG kat, it's so obvious what she meant/was doing", fine, I'm taking the L and you can scroll past this post. But those who are also wondering what she was doing, keep reading (this will be a canon analysis).
So, after being defeated by Wes and Rui, Venus makes a run for The Under's Subway Station, later openly stating her intention to go to the Shadow Pokémon Lab to hide with Ein. It's quite obvious, and also implied in the dialogue of various NPCs, that the Trainers Wes and Rui have to battle along the way are there to delay them. Venus is hoping that either she can get on the train in time and disappear or Wes and Rui don't keep chasing her in the first place.
Unfortunately for her, they catch up to her at the Subway Station before she can leave with the Shadow Liner. This means, as Venus of course realizes immediately, that one escape route, the entrance to the station leading to The Under, is blocked, since that's where Wes and Rui are now standing. And this, in turn, means that only one more escape route remains - to the lab. But, as Venus also says, she can't lead them to the lab. That would be bad for Cipher as a whole and also defeat the purpose of hiding there.
(The lab is mentioned to Wes and Rui in various NPC dialogue before they ever go to The Under, however Venus obviously has no way of knowing this or if they have the map marker for it. It was built and intended as a secret facility, so for all she knows, most people don't even know it exists, making it a pretty good hiding spot.)
So what does Venus do? She's like, "Oh no, I can't let you get on our train" and proceeds to get on it herself. Which naturally prompts Wes and Rui to follow her immediately. But instead of attempting to use the train, Venus exits it again. And once she does, she's on the other side of them. By chasing her on the train, Wes and Rui had to give up their position of blocking the entrance, allowing Venus to essentially run a lap around them.
Note the position reversal.
This way, the first escape route to The Under becomes available to Venus once again, and it's exactly the one she proceeds to take, allowing her to escape without having to lead Wes and Rui to the lab.
The question of why she dropped the Subway Key remains. And I actually have a theory/explanation for it that shifts the conclusion from "Venus messed up/did something stupid" to "Venus once again did something very smart here". But I'll share that another time maybe😇
See, there's one aspect of Shadow Pokémon gameplay-wise that I'm particularly fond of, and it's the fact that sometimes they're actually more useful and more beneficial to take into a specific battle than normal or already purified Pokémon.
Of course the goal of the game is to catch and purify all Shadow Pokémon Cipher made. But due to aforementioned reasons, there can be situations where you might strategically choose to take advantage of Shadow Pokémon. One example for this is how it's often recommended that you go into the fight against Greevil with only five Pokémon, catch XD001 (immediate Master Ball ideally) and use it to stall out his full team of shadows so you can catch them. If you want to catch all of Greevil's Pokémon, doing so without any shadows on your own team is hard - potentially nearly impossible for casual players or highly dependent on luck or you have to rematch him several times.
Why do I like this so much? Because on one hand, you get to use Cipher's own creations against them. Karma. But on the other hand, you don't get to easily maintain the moral high ground. Yes, you use Shadow Pokémon in battle to lower their Heart Gauge and eventually purify them, but one could argue that you still benefitted from Cipher's work - and therefore the abuse of Pokémon - in the process. Of course, you could go out of your way and complete the games by only catching the Shadow Pokémon and lowering their Heart Gauges either exclusively with methods that don't involve battling or battling with them in a way that has only the non-Shadow Pokémon attack and knock both opponents out before they can attack. Because if your shadow takes a hit, someone could try to argue again that, due to it serving as an alternative target, you benefitted from battling with a Shadow Pokémon.
One XD strategy guide further draws attention to the moral dilemmas surrounding Shadow Pokémon by pointing out that stealing Pokémon from their Trainers is normally unethical, but Prof. Krane believes it's justified if done in the name of saving Shadow Pokémon. The stealing is technically a wholly different aspect to this, but I felt it was relevant to add in order to show that there is - at least in the vast majority of cases - no perfect moral purity on our protagonists' part. Which is redundant to point out for Wes the former criminal, but interesting to consider for Michael.
It's an important lesson to learn: It's good to have firm principles to stick to, but sometimes, you won't make a change by kindly asking bad people to stop being bad. Sometimes you have to fight with whatever means you have available to you.
One pocket headcanon I have for Michael is that he never told Lily, Jovi or anyone in HQ Lab what happened on Citadark Isle.
He knew that it would break Jovi's heart and possibly forever change the way she interacts with the world if she found out that "Mr. Cool Man" was not a "nice person" and in fact tried to kill her brother. After she already lost her father (possibly to Cipher as well).
He knew that Lily, Krane and the other adults would never forgive themselves for letting him get into such a dangerous situation in the first place.
And Michael just wanted everyone to be happy, as his reward for his hard work as a hero, not be upset and heartbroken about things that happened. So he left out parts of the story. I like to think that he said he went to the dome to face Greevil and defeated him and then ended his tale there. At some point, Michael definitely also had to catch Eldes before he could drop the truth bomb, as part of his efforts to make amends and come clean about everything, and made him promise to not say a word either.
I like to imagine that Eldes asked Michael if he was sure and said that it's not his responsibility to protect him, his father or his brother, and that Michael told him it's more so for the sake of his own family, which actually made Eldes feel better about it. He wasn't happy to agree to this, not because he was at all looking forward to telling Lily that his brother almost fucking murdered her baby boy, but because he wanted no more lies and to finally face the consequences of his own and Cipher's actions, so that he can be free from it all after. Still, he agreed because it was Michael's wish and he felt that Michael alone should get to decide this, not he (Eldes).
It doesn't bother Eldes that only four people, himself included, know what he did that day. That he saved many lives and arguably accomplished a tiny bit of heroism himself. The shame that he feels about the actions of Ardos and Greevil is far greater than any pride he could take in his own, and he views them as the only right thing to do in that moment and what he as just a human being was supposed to do.
Michael has shouldered many burders a boy his age shouldn't have had to carry, so to him it's simply "what is one more?". And so he takes on one more, just to make sure his loved ones don't worry about him more than they already have. He also hides the threatening message he receives from Ardos after defeating him in Orre Colosseum (if we want to consider that canon), possibly even from Eldes to also not stress him out any further.
And even though Ardos is most definitely the last person Michael cares to protect with this - if he ever finds a way out of Cipher fanaticism, changes his way and truly regrets what he did, Michael's action might also allow him to come back from something there usually is no coming back from. I don't think too many people have considered an eventual redemption arc for Ardos and it's not something I necessarily plan to make canon in my verse either, but if we want to entertain that possibility for a second, we can appreciate that Michael saved him too, in a way.
In a way he should never, ever have had to, mind you.
Pokémon Colosseum animation featuring Venus walking somewhere in The Under, followed by her squad of female peons.
Imperial March is playing. For no particular reason.
Certainly not because she's working on becoming the de facto dictator of the underground and acts as an enforcer for a criminal organization planning to take over the entire region (at least, if not more). An organization whose members will be wearing stormtrooper armor in the sequel. Also not because she's power-hungry and takes joy in hurting and killing people like a Sith lord would. Nope
Alongside the other contrasts, differences and dichotomies that are pretty much mandatory for any characterization of Ardos and Eldes, they ended up with another in my verse: Past and future.
Ardos is fascinated - almost obsessed - with the past, specifically Ancient Orre with all its glory, achievements and culture. He sees the destruction and downfall of Ancient Orre not as an inevitable and perhaps even justified consequence of endless wars and battles and massive abuse of power and resources on every side; he sees it as a tragedy that must be reverted. Essentially, Ardos hopes that Cipher's rule could be the first step towards restoring this old power and glory that Orre once had and eventually bring it back to a place where it and its inhabitants are taken seriously and no longer branded as a filthy den of lowly criminals (ironic, coming from a man who is a criminal himself and whose father is probably one of the biggest thieves - by virtue of being a billionaire - the world has ever seen). Needless to say, Ardos also pictures himself as one of the rulers and masters of this restored realm.
Eldes believes - due to aforementioned reasons - that there are damn good reasons why Ancient Orre fell and that it should be left buried under the sand and its dreams of power and conquest laid to rest forever. He wants a better future for his home region, but it should be a future that moves on from the past and doesn't repeat the same mistakes. This is why Eldes takes such a liking to Michael and develops a strong desire to both guide and protect him: Seeing what a genuinely good and positive person Michael is and how he works hard to save and protect people and Pokémon makes Eldes believe that this future could become reality, despite all the corruption, injustice, spite and hatred poisoning Orre to this day, manifested in Cipher (chiefly but sadly not exclusively). It has since become his goal to preserve this better future - through its "avatars" like Michael - at all cost.
Ardos wanting to kill Michael works well with this new aspect too, as I'm sure you can already tell.
So, we're all familiar with the contrast between Ardos and Eldes as the "evil" brother and the "good" brother respectively. XD sets this up long before they openly show their true colors in the story finale, with Eldes having that conversation about seeking power with Michael and Ardos displaying increasingly aggressive and hateful behavior.
Which makes it quite an interesting choice to have Ardos be the one to save Jovi and Michael at the beginning of the game.
Think about it: If you had to write this story about two brothers in a crime syndicate/cult, with one being evil and one good, you might instinctively gravitate towards having the good one - Eldes - save the kids, just to solidify the idea of him being a good person deep down and having the player question his moral alignment after there were (in this case several) positive interactions with him before he's revealed to be with the big bad villain. At least it would have been my first instinct. But as it stands, Eldes actually says and does nothing during the whole Zook interaction, and the one who saves the kids is Ardos, the intended-to-be-evil one.
Ardos himself has something to say on the matter:
"I was merely punishing a fool that used a Shadow Pokémon in public. At the time, we didn't want the world to know what we, Cipher, were planning."
He reminds Michael of this on Citadark Isle but at the same time neither expects nor wants gratitude. Even right after it happened - should Michael and Jovi go talk to him in the Krabby Club - he tells them not to worry about it.
What Ardos says does make sense. Zook loudly announced that he was using a Shadow Pokémon, so the necessity to intervene - from Cipher's perspective - was there. Ardos himself did something that only seemed good, but had ulterior motives that were actually not-so-good. Additionally, it appears to be congruent with his general personality: Between him and Eldes, Ardos consistently is the one to step up and act first when something happens (Gateon Port, Citadark Isle admin battles*, post final battle).
*In another post, this has been discussed as evidence that Greevil prefers Eldes, but the personality aspect was also brought up.
What I also find interesting is that Ardos points out how he saw Michael as "just an ordinary child", implying that, no matter what he states as his primary motive for intervening, he did on some level perceive him as vulnerable and in need of help.
It may be that this is supposed to be a parallel: Both Ardos and Eldes save Michael at some point, with only their motives and reasons being drastically different. Directly in opposition, even. It may be that this is some cruel irony, much deserved by Ardos. It may be that both brothers were intended to have a hand in the events that led to the downfall of Cipher and, most importantly for them, the man who dragged them into this "nightmare", as Eldes puts it, and kept them trapped there; even if Ardos is utterly unable to understand and perceive it that way.
I like the thought that, if you're Ardos Verich, no good deed goes unpunished.
