[SPOILERS] Wow, they really...

Anyone else disappointed you didn't catch Lillie's Pokemon for her? Could have been a nice touch.

pryce10 said:

Who says she always needs to be a villain? Why can't she be an anti-heroine in this universe?

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That is true. An alternate universe does have people that is slightly different to the first one we all know.

The Green One said:

Anyone else disappointed you didn't catch Lillie's Pokemon for her? Could have been a nice touch.

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I am not disappointed. I am not catching anything for her. That be a terrible thing to add in the game in my opinion. It was pointless giving her a pokemon anyway since she does mostly nothing with it.

I rather catch pokemon for Lusamine.

I agree with the op. I think the story in sun and moon was a lot better.

I don't think Lusamine's character was destroyed, but compared to the prior games she's pretty bland this time around. In sun and moon it's clear she's insane and I thought she was an awesome insane character for pokemon. Especially when you finally find her in ultra space and she fuses with nihilego and becomes this crazed jelly monster.

The usum version of her is from what I gathered Lusamine without being affected from the toxins of nihilego and the result is just a selfish mother. Which ends up not being that great of a villain. When the whole scene was going down in aether paradise I remember thinking... this is it? It's like they wanted to make her seem like a villain by her still willing to use cosmog till its death, but it really doesn't correlate because this time around she's not using cosmog for her own selfish gain. She's willing to sacrifice cosmog to stop necrozma to save all of alola which in that situation seems pretty warranted and not such an evil thing to do. I'd say the worst thing she did this time around was just freeze the three? pokemon they showed during that scene. Besides that, everything she did was in an attempt to save alola. She's pretty much just a very hardheaded person which results in her being a not so great mother and that's pretty much it.

So was the story bad? I'd say it's not horrible, but in comparison to the first version of this story it's the lamer almost doesn't make sense one

Bellsprout said:

I agree with the op. I think the story in sun and moon was a lot better.

I don't think Lusamine's character was destroyed, but compared to the prior games she's pretty bland this time around. In sun and moon it's clear she's insane and I thought she was an awesome insane character for pokemon. Especially when you finally find her in ultra space and she fuses with nihilego and becomes this crazed jelly monster.

The usum version of her is from what I gathered Lusamine without being affected from the toxins of nihilego and the result is just a selfish mother. Which ends up not being that great of a villain. When the whole scene was going down in aether paradise I remember thinking... this is it? It's like they wanted to make her seem like a villain by her still willing to use cosmog till its death, but it really doesn't correlate because this time around she's not using cosmog for her own selfish gain. She's willing to sacrifice cosmog to stop necrozma to save all of alola which in that situation seems pretty warranted and not such an evil thing to do. I'd say the worst thing she did this time around was just freeze the three? pokemon they showed during that scene. Besides that, everything she did was in an attempt to save alola. She's pretty much just a very hardheaded person which results in her being a not so great mother and that's pretty much it.

So was the story bad? I'd say it's not horrible, but in comparison to the first version of this story it's the lamer almost doesn't make sense one

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like I said before Lusamime is NOT meant to be a villain!

pryce10 said:

like I said before Lusamime is NOT meant to be a villain!

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Whether or not she was meant to be the villain this time around doesn't change my opinion on preferring the s/m lusamine.

The Green One said:

Anyone else disappointed you didn't catch Lillie's Pokemon for her? Could have been a nice touch.

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I still say Lillie should have had the starter the player and Hau didn't pick.

Kukui gets that one

mysticalflute said:

I still say Lillie should have had the starter the player and Hau didn't pick.

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Glad she didn't. Lillie does not deserve a starter. It went to Kukui who deserves it the most.

Agreed. She comes off as abusive and arrogant. Also I don't think the game implies Nihilego has anything to do with Lusamine's negative behavior.

If you ask me, I think USUM butchered Lusamine's character completely.

In SM, Lusamine was an selfish, arrogant mother whose desires to be more in tune with her beauty lead her to dissolve further into madness. The game already states that Lusamine had some of these tendencies before. It's just that the toxins from Nihilego made them worse. This also works better with SM due to how this affects Lillie and Gladion.

In SM both Gladion and Lillie both confront their mother. Lillie also has several key scenes (like exeggcutor island) in which she explains while what her mother is doing is terrible, she still wants to help her because she wants to see the humanity that she once saw in her years ago. And while we understand what she did was wrong, you could make the excuse she was not mentally stable (though that's up for another debate) for the most part, out of ALL of the villains in the franchise, Lusamine got the her punishment in SM. Say what you want about SM's story, but the ending is bittersweet. Lusamine's disabled after everything and despite what happened, she's getting the treatment she needs. It's even implied that Lusamine knows what she did was wrong and is trying to do better.

USUM struggles with this and I think this is where the problem of making these third versions come in. Because they have to follow the standard formula of being "thirds" there is little change with the story, thus, some characters get shafted. Instead of Lusamine being insane, she's now and overprotective, selfish mother, which doesn't make it any better than before...infact THAT MAKES IT WORSE.

Instead of having that toxin excuse, now it's just that she's selfish. All that moral ambiguity is gone. And because that reasoning is gone, not only do we miss out on a cool boss fight, but we miss out on Lillie and Gladion's development as instead of being sympathetic children of an obsessive mother, they now come off as spoiled kids who didn't want to be protected by their mother. And yes, she's still selfish, but this time around, the intentions are good. So now there are plotholes that just can't be ignored here.

There are also certain things with Lusamine that didn't make sense with the fact that she was "overprotective". For example, Lillie looks like Nihilego still even though she mentions and it is implied Lusamine dressed her up due to her obssession. The other confusing bit is the fact that she still has frozen pokemon, but no one seems to care about that?! At least she had SOME excuse in the first game. What's the excuse here?

HeroLinik said:

(sorta can't remember, even though I just beat her), and then having the player step up to battle her so she can see if they're good enough to continue on the island challenge and possibly...buy her time?

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This is just a small correction, but the reason Lusamine battles the player in US/UM is that she's attempting to prove to Lillie and Gladion that she's strong enough to handle going into Ultra Space and confronting Necrozma, since they express the fear that they'll lose her too.

And then when she loses, she doesn't take it as a sign that she can't handle it and jumps into the Ultra Wormhole anyway lol

Ducolamia said:

All that moral ambiguity is gone.

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I mean, it's still there a little bit, just in a different form. Basically the whole "do you sacrifice the few (Nebby in this case) in order to save the many?" kind of thing

honestly, people who complain about Lusamine's character's are people who button mashed A button and did not even read the text.

But would sacrificing Nebby even have been necessary in the first place? The Ultra Recon Squad got to our world through the help of one of the cover legendaries; if getting to Ultra Megalopolis was the reason Nebby was needed in the first place (which it was, if I remember correctly,) then all she'd have to do is just ask them to take her there since they happily let you go there once crap hits the fan, assuming they are refusing to lend her their help. It's not like Nebby was the core of some weapon or device meant to keep Necrozma in check, and all it's used for is to open a single wormhole, not the dozens we see it used to open in S/M. I mean I understand it was a framing device so we could have Nebby evolve but if you think about it it doesn't make that much sense.... and plus it's not like Lusamine even had a plan beyond "battle Necrozma, ???, profit".

mew_nani said:

But would sacrificing Nebby even have been necessary in the first place? The Ultra Recon Squad got to our world through the help of one of the cover legendaries; if getting to Ultra Megalopolis was the reason Nebby was needed in the first place (which it was, if I remember correctly,) then all she'd have to do is just ask them to take her there since they happily let you go there once crap hits the fan, assuming they are refusing to lend her their help. It's not like Nebby was the core of some weapon or device meant to keep Necrozma in check, and all it's used for is to open a single wormhole, not the dozens we see it used to open in S/M. I mean I understand it was a framing device so we could have Nebby evolve but if you think about it it doesn't make that much sense.... and plus it's not like Lusamine even had a plan beyond "battle Necrozma, ???, profit".

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The mascot legendary is nebby fully evolved so ultra recon squad did not use it. They used a different Solgaleo/Lunala to travel.

Alexander18 said:

The mascot legendary is nebby fully evolved so ultra recon squad did not use it. They used a different Solgaleo/Lunala to travel.

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So then.... why'd Lusamine need Nebby? They can clearly summon theirs at will since they do so to let us ride them during the climax, and they freely mention this to us so why wouldn't they have told Lusamine, and why didn't Lusamine just ask to hitch a ride with them? Nebby wasn't really necessary at all if wormhole travel was the only thing Lusamine had in mind, aside from its being used being plot justification for Nebby's evolution and the main reason for traveling to Poni Island.

mew_nani said:

So then.... why'd Lusamine need Nebby? They can clearly summon theirs at will since they do so to let us ride them during the climax, and they freely mention this to us so why wouldn't they have told Lusamine, and why didn't Lusamine just ask to hitch a ride with them? Nebby wasn't really necessary at all if wormhole travel was the only thing Lusamine had in mind, aside from its being used being plot justification for Nebby's evolution and the main reason for traveling to Poni Island.

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because Ultra Recon squad did not trust Lusamime that much... heck in Sun version they don't even trust YOU that much. There relationships were purely business-minded. Why would they let this woman defeat Necrozma?

In USUM, as you're leaving Aether Paradise to go to Poni Island, Gladion makes a comment that he thinks the real reason Lusamine went to Ultra Space was to try and find Mohn.

Usually I like referring to Bulbapedia for in-game quotes and events that happen in the games to try and get a better sense of what's going on in the story. Unfortunately, they don't got much of anything right now on USUM except for the rest of the in-game features.

mew_nani said:

So then.... why'd Lusamine need Nebby? They can clearly summon theirs at will since they do so to let us ride them during the climax, and they freely mention this to us so why wouldn't they have told Lusamine, and why didn't Lusamine just ask to hitch a ride with them? Nebby wasn't really necessary at all if wormhole travel was the only thing Lusamine had in mind, aside from its being used being plot justification for Nebby's evolution and the main reason for traveling to Poni Island.

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Good question. Why did Lusamine needed Nebby ? We do get to ride on it during the climax battle, and would it make more sense for her to ask for a ride on Nebby when it fully evolved so she can travel to the ultra space, i mean that is suppose to be the main reason for going to Poni island in the first place..

Ducolamia said:

If you ask me, I think USUM butchered Lusamine's character completely.

In SM, Lusamine was an selfish, arrogant mother whose desires to be more in tune with her beauty lead her to dissolve further into madness. The game already states that Lusamine had some of these tendencies before. It's just that the toxins from Nihilego made them worse. This also works better with SM due to how this affects Lillie and Gladion.

In SM both Gladion and Lillie both confront their mother. Lillie also has several key scenes (like exeggcutor island) in which she explains while what her mother is doing is terrible, she still wants to help her because she wants to see the humanity that she once saw in her years ago. And while we understand what she did was wrong, you could make the excuse she was not mentally stable (though that's up for another debate) for the most part, out of ALL of the villains in the franchise, Lusamine got the her punishment in SM. Say what you want about SM's story, but the ending is bittersweet. Lusamine's disabled after everything and despite what happened, she's getting the treatment she needs. It's even implied that Lusamine knows what she did was wrong and is trying to do better.

USUM struggles with this and I think this is where the problem of making these third versions come in. Because they have to follow the standard formula of being "thirds" there is little change with the story, thus, some characters get shafted. Instead of Lusamine being insane, she's now and overprotective, selfish mother, which doesn't make it any better than before...infact THAT MAKES IT WORSE.

Instead of having that toxin excuse, now it's just that she's selfish. All that moral ambiguity is gone. And because that reasoning is gone, not only do we miss out on a cool boss fight, but we miss out on Lillie and Gladion's development as instead of being sympathetic children of an obsessive mother, they now come off as spoiled kids who didn't want to be protected by their mother. And yes, she's still selfish, but this time around, the intentions are good. So now there are plotholes that just can't be ignored here.

There are also certain things with Lusamine that didn't make sense with the fact that she was "overprotective". For example, Lillie looks like Nihilego still even though she mentions and it is implied Lusamine dressed her up due to her obssession. The other confusing bit is the fact that she still has frozen pokemon, but no one seems to care about that?! At least she had SOME excuse in the first game. What's the excuse here?

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I think there's plenty of moral ambiguity in her positioning in USUM, but I have one particular criticism here.

There's nothing that actually explicitly states, in-game, that Lusamine's mental state in either game was affected by Nihilego before encounter in Ultra Space. For all intents and purposes, up to the moment that she steps into Ultra Space, her physical character arc is identical in both games, with her motivations and personality operating on slightly different frequencies. I would argue that assumptions that she is affected by toxins in one set of versions and not in the other is a fundamental misreading of the character, specifically of her character in Sun and Moon. Things like the frozen Pokemon and her fixation on physical and metaphorical beauty likely pre-date her own physical interactions with Nihilego, though not her husband's disappearance. Further, I'd suggest that since we don't have direct evidence, the similarities between Lillie and Nihilego might not be a direct result of her interactions with the Ultra Beast; rather, her own attraction to the Pokemon might actually be partially a result of that similarity and the species' role in her husband's disappearance. I'm not sure, but do we even have much information that indicates that its neurotoxins can even influence a person before it attempts to use them as a physical host?

Lusamine having good, if sometimes selfish, intentions and executing them very questionably is the core of her character. In USUM, that's displayed more effectively and more clearly - rather than simply being an overbearing mother driven to illogical extremes by the disappearance of her husband (and later the parasitic influence of Nihilego), she retains more clearly a fundamental drive to preserve Alola's endangered Pokemon. She more clearly implies her desire is not to control her children like possessions, but to protect them from what she perceives to be their own youthful misunderstanding of the world. It's clearer now than it was that her primary motivators are 1) what happened to Mohn and 2) a very instinctual, motherly impulse to protect that which she feels is within her means to control, which is probably exacerbated by a feeling of complete helplessness to have protected her husband.

I want to reiterate my mention earlier in this thread of a very specific post-game (I think) scene, as well as one more I won't spoil (if it still counts as a spoiler a month later). She displays true, legitimate growth within these games, accepting her faults and working to move past them; that's not a thing we directly see in SM, with any such growth limited to us being told that she tried to join the post-game celebration to show gratitude but was still too sick to do so.

I understand that some people might not like the changes to her character. I think people who had a certain preexisting notion of who she is - or should be - are even less likely to like her changes than usual. Personally, though, I find the depth of her character to be much more impressive this time, and I'm impressed that the writers managed to handle her in a very different way with this set of games.