Character Development Hard Mode Asks: 8 and 9 for Volo, 13 and 17 for Cynthia, 21 and 22 for Cyrus
#8: How does your character handle training a struggling Pokémon?
Volo, much like his daughter Cynthia in this department, is a cheater. Given that Giratina is a god of the dead like Yveltal, he can read bodies and souls, and often defaults to that when he notices one of his team is struggling. With this in mind, he knows how to quickly and efficiently get to the root of the problem--which is the first step to solving it.
Unlike Cynthia, though, Volo is quicker to give up on a struggling Pokémon. He’s from Hisui, after all, and look at how rough and tough the culture there can be. Remember how Cyllene threatens to leave you to die if you can’t earn your keep? There’s also an NPC who says that life is a struggle and there’s no food for freeloaders, which is probably why Beni at first is so unwilling to give you food. All this in mind, it’s very unlikely that there’d be a place on someone’s team for a Pokémon who can’t earn their keep as well.
Volo’s willing to work with a weaker Pokémon to some extent. But being single-minded about his goals, he’s also not above repurposing them for a non-battling purpose or dropping them from the team entirely if they prove time and time again that they can’t keep up.
#9: What is your character’s overall philosophy for Training (or succeeding in any other job they do in the Pokémon world)?
Volo’s #1 thing is always securing alignment with his goals. When he and his Pokémon (and allies) are all single-mindedly aligned for his purpose, that’s when they can be accomplished most effectively. He achieves this with his massive amounts of charisma, but also a huge dose of intellect: he combines his clever coaxing with a(n apparent) willingness to let those who serve him come to his conclusions on their own. He’s good enough that he’ll make you think it’s all your idea when really it’s his--and that’s part of what makes him terrifying. Then, after you’re all primed for it, he’ll show you the Truth, and then there’s really no going back.
Volo also has an unfortunate philosophy of immediately turning against and killing anyone who chooses to oppose him, no matter what they meant to him before. Whether you’re a close friend/relative or a stranger, you’ll meet the same fate at his hands for betraying him. And after your death, he’ll probably throw out all the positive memories he had of you and, going forward, think of you only as the enemy who turned on him and abandoned his glorious mission.
Once again, the only person he wouldn’t do this to is his daughter Cynthia. Her two kids from an ex-marriage (who I’ll discuss in depth later) he will show mercy to for her sake, but even then, he’ll probably cut ties with them for good. Clearly, his goals are more important to him than all things--whether it’s his family, or his Pokémon, or literally anything else in the world he could possibly hold dear.
#13: Has your character ever had conflicts with their Pokémon? Were they resolved? If so, how? And if not, why not?
Oh yes, Cynthia has had a conflict with her Pokémon. Namely, it was her Garchomp partner--who’d very much wanted to sink her teeth into Cyrus’ neck. After Cynthia let Cyrus go the first time, they had an argument over whether this was the correct path. Garchomp threatened that if Cynthia didn’t want to kill Cyrus herself, she would; Cynthia threatened back that if she laid a claw on her brother, she’d drop her from the team. Garchomp reluctantly chose not to take this course of action, but she did call Cynthia weak--something that Cynthia still thinks about as she chose to spare Cyrus. Though this conflict has been mostly resolved, it still hangs over her any time the subject of her brother comes up.
#17: Is your character where they want to be in the Pokémon world, and why?
Yes and no! On one hand, Cynthia knows that she’s already made it into the annals of history’s greatest Trainers. She knows her reputation as the most terrifying Champion and her place among the ranks of the most distinguished, and she’s proud of how far she’s come. She knows even if she stopped Training today, she’d still go down as one of the greats…
Yet part of her is always hungry for more. She’s always aiming higher to perfect her craft, to “be the very best, like no one ever was.” What’s striking about her work ethic is that she strives to do this even though many people would say she’s already there, seeing as many consider her to be the greatest Champion in the history of Champions, on par with or better than the greats like Leon and my Wallace on @hisvanity. She knows that being the best means that you’re always striving to get better, always in competition with yourself, never letting yourself become complacent in your Champion duties or your battling technique. And this is a fire that burns in her that won’t ever go out, in all her years to come.
#21 and #22: What was the most difficult part of your character’s path in the Pokémon world? What was the most rewarding part of your character’s path?
It would be easy to say that the most difficult part of Cyrus’ path was taking in all of that horrible eldritch knowledge. But the next most difficult part of Cyrus’ path is still yet to come: Him coming to terms with the fact that he’s caused permanent damage to himself. Right now he’s not in any position to fully comprehend the scope of that, but as his positive emotions begin to return in muted forms as well as a very faint glimmer of remorse, he’s going to become more aware of what he’s lost and he’s going to feel just enough regret to cause him an exquisite amount of pain. He’ll go back and forth about whether this wasn’t his fault, whether he was purely a victim of Volo and Arceus, or whether this was all his fault instead--and the truth is honestly somewhere in between. If you thought he was depressed, this’ll only depress him even more, as he realizes that he’s doomed himself to a pitiful half-existence the likes of which only someone like Arceus could possibly curse him to.
Before his madness, however, the most difficult part of his path was simultaneously the most rewarding part: Being so close to his sister. His constant proximity to Cynthia, both in his personal and professional lives was a double-edged sword: on one hand he loved her dearly, more than anyone in the world, but on the other hand, just being around her sometimes could remind him of how envious he was of her. He couldn’t have asked for a better rival, or a better battling partner. Yet sometimes, the very fact that they were so close to each other seemed to twist the knife.
He hid his jealousy so well that his sister had to figure out on her own that he was jealous and insecure. The only indication of it that shone through was that he would constantly compare himself to her, saying she was better and that he had “accepted” he was second best. It’s not a sign most people would pick up on, but Cynthia, sharp as a tack, faced him gently about his envy one day and assured him that she would always love him as her brother and see him as an equal. And, because I’m never going to stop tormenting him, this made things both better and worse: better because at least Cynthia of all people viewed him kindly, worse because he knew the world would never agree.
Overall, this was just an awful situation for him to be in that he never escaped from until his eldritch madness “liberated” him from the pains and insecurities of his past. That’s literally how he saw it--as a liberation--because once he saw that nothing mattered, none of the pains of his past mattered anymore. Technically you could say this allowed him to move on, although it was in the worst possible way. A more unkind assessment that many make? He was too weak to face his problems on his own, and he would never have put those burdens down without such a shock to his mental state.
