Ah, so this truly is what kind of antagonist you are, Spinel.
Not only does he not believe in bonds or friendship, he detests them and underneath his behavior he has an extremely cynical and bitter worldview. He assumes the worst out of everyone and thinks everyone, person or Pokémon, will inevitably betray one another, and sees Laquium as merely exposing what he thinks is the fundamental truth of the world.
How dreadful...sir, who hurt you so badly that you became this cynical and lashed out this hard?
These are thoughts I've had for a while and that I just never really got around to write. Ep 130 gave me more to think about on the subject, and I am writing it down as future reference before the final episode of this chapter.
The main focus is Spinel, but I'll mention some other characters to get to my point. I can't talk about one character without mentioning others because everyone is connected.
Thinking about how the series establishes the importance of communication and reaching out, which we've seen multiple times through several characters, notably through mentors and students, coaches and disciples, someone who guides and the person being guided or in general, even people and Pokemon.
Friede, who is explicitly Spinel's foil as a former Exceed researcher, was lost at a point in his life. Lucca, his former school teacher, reached out and helped him and she is the reason he met Cap and pursued his passion. (The contrast between Friede and Spinel stands out even more, considering that Friede stepped away from the laboratories, while Spinel sank deeper and deeper into them.)
Hamber was the one who scouted Sango, Onyx and Agate. He felt responsible for the paths they took and reached out to them in a battle to teach them a last lesson and try to remind them of what's truly important. His actions eventually had an effect on them, as they had a change of heart and decided to go against Spinel’s orders.
Agate especially stands out, as she is the closest to Spinel. Her relationship with Hamber parallels Spinel's relationship with Gibeon. Both Agate and Spinel have been chosen for similar reasons. Gibeon acknowledged Spinel's skills as a researcher, and Hamber knew Agate was a brilliant teacher before meeting her. Spinel and Agate both became able to stand on equal grounds with the "person who chose them" as well (Spinel worked in tandem with Gibeon, while Agate could challenge Hamber in a unique way that Sango and Onyx weren't able to do).
Hamber and Gibeon were both characters willing to go to great lengths for their goals. Hamber said that the Explorers were not an organization of justice (ep 130), so he has no illusions about what he's been doing. His bond with Diana was strained during the early parts of the series, but they eventually reconciled (and she made him pay up for the damage he caused to her place). He was wandering and was lost at some point, but eventually found his way back on the path he wanted to walk (Gibeon helped him, and Diana was probably also an important presence to knock some sense into him after he joined the Explorers). Similarly, Gibeon had bonds which were important to him and reconsidered his views in Rakua thanks to Lucius, Amethio and Zygarde.
So, even Hamber and Gibeon who were in a position of "person who guides"* got to be on the receiving end of help and guidance at some point. (* Hamber as Sango/Agate/Onyx's coach, and Gibeon as Spinel's boss <- their relationship is complex, so I'm settling on this simple word to describe Gibeon's role towards Spinel, I could go on for hours otherwise.)
I think Spinel stands out even more in how alone he is, in contrast to all these characters who got reached out to and specifically in light of ep 130 which depicted Hamber feeling the need to take responsibility for Sango, Onyx and Agate.
Gibeon didn't take responsibility for Spinel (and can’t take responsibility anymore).
Spinel didn't get the luxury of being accepted or rejected. Gibeon didn't give him either. Gibeon could have taken a moment before he passed to tell Spinel to let everything go. Maybe Spinel wouldn't have listened, but it could have been something to hold onto, or words to remember. But Gibeon didn't, and Spinel was left abandoned. We don't know what Gibeon could have told him had he considered Spinel to be someone that may have needed some last words directed at him, so we are left with uncertainty regarding the matter or on what Gibeon thought of Spinel. On a personal level, I find that delicious narratively but it also fucks me up in light of the contrast to other characters who got reached out to by their respective mentors/guiding figures (Sango, Onyx, Agate, Friede). Spinel will never have anything of the sort.
(This is unrelated to Horizons, but something about Spinel's lack of closure with Gibeon reminds me of Light Yagami from hit series Death Note. (Which I want to write about, because the similarities between the two situations have been on my mind for months, so I want to remember that.)
In Death Note, Light's father eventually dies and his death leaves so many unanswered questions to Light. On his deathbed, his father looks at Light in the eyes and expresses relief when telling him "Light, I'm glad you're not Kira." His father had the Shinigami Eyes, which allowed him to see a person's real name and lifespan (if he can't see that person's name and lifespan, it means they are a Death Note holder), and he concluded that Light wasn't Kira since he could see his name. It showed that he still had doubts for years about his son's innocence after L's death and that he couldn't shake off the underlying feeling that Light may have been Kira. And the thing is, he was. He died comforted by a falsehood. He will never know the truth, and he will never accept Kira either. Which leaves so many potential questions: how would his father react if he knew his son was Kira? Would he understand? and so on. The appeal lies in these questions being unanswered forever. Light is stuck with a lack of closure, and I find that beautifully haunting. That's the one bit from the Death Note story that's made me insane for years ok.
It reminds me of Spinel's situation, though in an opposite way because in his case, he wasn't "seen" by Gibeon in his final moments and he didn’t even get any words from him either, but the idea of that lack of proper closure being haunting and deliberate strikes me as similar.)
Anyway, I wonder if Gibeon will get mentioned in ep 136. I understand that sometimes, not addressing something within the narrative is also a way to address it and that can be interesting in its own right. Though, I think that Hamber and Gibeon both hold responsibility in regards to the paths the Explorers admins took. Hamber's responsibility was addressed in ep 130, but it's unclear whether they'll touch briefly on Gibeon's part in shaping the current Spinel.
Spinel wasn't made in a vacuum. Gibeon has a share of responsibility in this. He chose him because he found him promising as a researcher, and he is the one who showed him the Rakurium and tempted him. Spinel probably wouldn't have known about it otherwise. In fact, their very meeting was only made possible through the Rakurium as Gibeon used it to prolong his own life, which eventually led him to meeting Spinel. Rakurium is what brought Gibeon and Spinel together in the first place.
It's possible that Spinel already felt the way he did about connections and betrayal prior to meeting Gibeon, and meeting the latter when he was in such a desperate position didn't help things. If anything, they probably validated each other’s pre-existing mindsets instead of challenging each other on them. Gibeon not acknowledging him in the end may have been a (possibly another?) betrayal in Spinel’s eyes and proof that people can’t be trusted, and Zygarde leaving Gibeon may have been proof that Pokemon can’t be trusted either (even though Zygarde did that to convey something to Gibeon that the latter eventually understood, and it wasn’t abandonment). At the moment, Spinel witnessed multiple acts of “betrayal” which probably reinforced his belief that his mindset was correct.
I think we get an insight on Gibeon's character and mindset through Hamber and Spinel, who are the two people he chose at different points in his life and opened up to. Both of them, as well as Amethio, mirror different sides of Gibeon (Amethio represents his noble sides and his pure dream of helping people and Pokemon, Hamber shows Gibeon’s desire to guide and nurture but leans into a gray area in terms of what they are both capable of for their goals, Spinel represents Gibeon’s darker and more “obsessive” sides in a way), and what Hamber and Spinel focus on is quite telling of Gibeon's potential priorities at the time he met them.
(ep 83 / ep 89)
Gibeon's dream, focusing on people and Pokemon’s prosperity, is what left an impression on Hamber. On the other hand, Spinel focused on the Rakurium. They met the same person, but they had two different priorities.
My personal speculation is that Gibeon was probably more content with life at the time he met Hamber. After all, he reached out to the man somehow, even though Hamber had no connection to him or Exceed, unlike Spinel. Hamber has seemingly known Gibeon for a long time, and I imagine that Maria was still alive at the time because Hamber became the family butler and knew Amethio as a kid. Thus, Hamber was influenced by the “noble sides” of Gibeon’s dream.
On the other hand, Spinel met Gibeon much later. Gibeon grew older and was probably much more desperate and focused on the Rakurium. Maria was no longer alive, and I think that played a part in Gibeon's hastiness and desperation to try and give some meaning to his life for the time he had left. That mindset is probably what made him choose Spinel.
I think the circumstances Spinel was picked in were a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.
Spinel is the culmination of the miscommunication and fear of betrayal that fostered for a century. He is the accumulation of hurt, isolation and grief that Gibeon carried and passed on to him. The embodiment of Gibeon’s original sin, and the monster that was created by him and then left behind.
Gibeon and Spinel’s relationship stands out uniquely among others because of that. It is unclear whether they communicated or not, but there seems to have been misunderstandings between them that they probably weren’t aware of.
It feels like Spinel was left to his own devices without much guidance from Gibeon. For example, Gibeon seemingly didn’t know about Spinel’s personal research on the Rakurium. When Amethio told him about the “Rakurium Sphere” in ep 87, Gibeon just retorted that Spinel took initiative towards drawing out the Rakurium’s power, and that it wasn’t wrong to do so. It’s unclear whether Gibeon knew what Spinel was doing in his lab, and Spinel probably would have wanted to hide it anyway?
On the other hand, Spinel probably thought that he “understood” Gibeon’s vision and that he was the closest one to, but his current actions don’t match Gibeon’s ideals at all. (Though as of now, he may be pursuing his own agenda unrelated to what Gibeon would have wanted.) Again, it’s unclear whether Gibeon properly expressed his vision to Spinel the way he did with Hamber. On Spinel’s side, there was probably a refusal to share and communicate, and on Gibeon’s side, he may have considered that his intentions were obvious? I find that really compelling. They may have thought that the other “understood” them, but did they really? (Which is just like Lucius and Gibeon all over again.)
Anyway, I’m not ascribing any moral value to all of this, I’m just lovingly sighing at this thematically resonant and completely disastrous mess that is Gibeon/Spinel <3 I’ve never seen such a unique relationship before, where two characters make each other spiral even more in a way that doesn’t feel intentionally malicious, but completely accidental yet tragic all the same.
Just two characters who are a bit too similar for their own good, in the “best” and “worst” ways. They share traits and hold similar values (they are intellectually curious and compatible and the only ones who saw eye to eye with each other on the Rakurium), and they have the exact same (very human) fears (betrayal). They may have been drawn to each other even more because of these fears (this is speculation on my part), and ended up enhancing them even more and feeding into each other’s worst impulses. Maybe they felt validated and were comforted by each other’s presence because of their similarities (the comfort can be in many ways btw, physical or else).
Spinel being similar to Gibeon is no coincidence, he is like another possibility of what Gibeon could have been without bonds. Spinel is what you get as a result of the century long tragedy mixed in with the lack of connections, and an enhanced attachment to something out of this world. Yet, despite all of this, they share a striking similarity, in that they both have had Pokemon by their side, through everything. Gibeon considered Zygarde to be the only one who remained by his side for 100 years and believed in him as his partner. Spinel’s Blacky is a steady, loyal presence for Spinel (and has tried to save him after seeing him be engulfed by the Rakurium) and they will seemingly highlight their interactions in the next episode. Zygarde and Blacky are quite similar in the way that they are more levelheaded than their Trainers who can be reckless and too focused on their goals. Zygarde managed to get his feelings across to Gibeon in the end. We’ll see about Blacky. I intend to watch over them until the end.
Anyway, I wrote this out of my love for Spinel and Gibeon’s characters and the way their relationship makes me go “damn, isn’t it kinda fucked up that Spinel’s isolation shines through so clearly compared to (gestures) literally everyone else and contrasts with the story’s themes of reaching out and taking the first step, and the ways lack of communication and connection are so poisonous and destructive in his and Gibeon’s case?”
Either way, it’s so sad. I’m eating it up nomnom. Love wins or whatever.
Last episode felt very oddly paced (it was outsourced and had waaaay too many animation directors so I guess that explains the quality drop), but today's ep was ok!
