So, the building Gladion came out of was another motel.

That Pokemon in the next guest room has been waiting for its Trainer forever, says the woman behind the counter.

What kind of terrible Trainer leaves a sweet Pokemon like that behind?! replies the woman in front of the counter.

So…either it’s a contrast from Gladion or Gladion ditched his normal pokemon on the assumption it’d be happier in an empty room? I mean, it feels like there’s supposed to be a connection but I don’t get what that connection is and the logistic problems are distracting – is sympathetic counter woman bringing it food? Is there some charity that goes around dealing with abandoned pokemon, like people who feed cat colonies? Does it feed itself?

Raticate update: favorite rubbing spot is the beesting cheeks of all things.

Also there was a different direction to go. I fight a trainer. I want to do business with Pokemon. For example, I could use the pincers of Crabrawler, which grow back constantly. So is this a double standard compared to all the other times it’s wrong, or is he a pokemon torturer?

I head inside to find out it’s a geothermal plant museum. There’s a lot of chatter about how pokemon were used to help build the place, but it’s less annoying than in Unova because they don’t then go on about how this shows how people and pokemon are so equal. Also, there’s one scientist with his magnemite who’s feeding on the energy, so we’re even finally seeing pokemon benefit alongside humans.

Also, Alolan Oak tells me that volcanos make glass strands but that’s not what the diglett have, they’re metal, and also the metal strands are used as sensors, then teleports away.

Well, back toward the event flag.

The Haina Desert is like nature’s own maze! But they say you can find your way through if you keep a close eye on those stone stacks… Someone once said that the answer is 2-1-4-3, but what is that supposed to mean anyway? It’s pretty weird to be hearing this from an old guy who you think would be a little more certain in their knowledge, but, actual difficult area? I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much but this is clearly a clue and if they were going to tell me explicitly later they wouldn’t bother, right?

…not that I can find out right now, because of course it’s barricaded.

I rudely barge into one of the trailers and a punk not straight up in a Skull uniform asks what the hell and if I wanna fight. Sadly, he won’t actually fight.

The girl in the trailer next door gives fewer fucks and is both dressed Skull and doing their adorable little dance. Team Skull was born outta this old group that once formed around one of the old kahunas. But that whole thing fell apart after they got smacked down by the wrath of the tapu!

Ooh, several interesting things at once! There was a kahuna not playing ball with everybody else, the tapu actually do stuff, AND the tapu’s involvement isn’t enough to actually crush a group.

I wonder if this is also part of the complacency we see from everyone – if it matters, the tapu solve it for them. If the tapu aren’t solving it for them, it doesn’t matter.

Older lady says, You can’t know who will get named a kahuna or not, young’un, till they get chosen. Even humans sometimes have to live at the whim of some capricious Pokemon.

It’s odd that we keep coming back to the idea they’re fickle. Generally, when dealing with a mysterious sacred force, you just assume its judgements are right in some way you don’t understand. And it seems the tapu aren’t picking completely randomly either, which means they’re far more reliable than plenty of the nonsense we’ve believed was infallible across history.

Perhaps I’m misjudging the “sacred” element. Maybe the people only respect their judgement in the same way one respects an elephant’s judgement on where it wants to sit today, and the reason “capricious” and such crop up in dialogue is an undercurrent of resentment. They call them guardians and deities, but then, Europe called their monsters “fair folk”.

Could connect up to what Guzma is talking about resentment over island tradition – kahuna thing may be arbitrary or it may be based on qualifications the humans don’t care about, and there’s resentment that humans appointed by a pokemon have a ton of power over other humans – we still have no details on what people meant when they were talking about Hala’s role in the community, but it sure sounded like he had a lot of power over who did what and wasn’t just the dude in charge of beating back surprise dangerous pokemon.

Next area, creeping closer to the event flag, an NPC standing in the rain says, Tapu Village… The village was named that because the tapu appeared here to protect Mount Lanakila, which reaches up so close to both the sun and moon. But all that’s left of it now is the name…

Another of those fantasy vs modern solar system glitches – this must’ve been amazingly profound back when all we knew about both celestial bodies was they were almost precisely the same size in the sky.

But, it does suggest I’m getting closer to some answers on why everything connected to the tapu is a “ruin”.

…event flag is just Hau. Seems we’re almost to the Aether House, where the captain is supposed to be, huh? So Aether has some connection to the trials too?

He then suddenly notices the obvious construction workers. So they’re really making a Pokemon League up on top of Mount Lanakila… What, does nothing else ever get constructed on these islands? The professor told me that Pokemon Leagues in other regions have four crazy-strong Trainers in them that they call the Elite Four! The Elite Four and our island kahunas…I wonder which ones are stronger!

Elite Fours.

I mean, let’s just consider the obvious numbers first. This is the seventh generation. Even if we say that one and two were basically the same and share their League, that only brings us down to six. Only one of those six can be strongest. Even Hau should be able to follow this.

It gets far more depressing when we look at the rest. As I said, a small island nation means a smaller pool of total trainers. Unless they care significantly more about this than the other regions, they’re already at a disadvantage. And it’s even worse than that, because everything we’ve seen says that actually, they care significantly less – “trial captain” is a job for teenagers to the point they straight up banned anyone older from keeping the post and kahunas are picked by pokemon based on criteria other than just being a great trainer. A lot of people just aren’t going to try and those that do care deeply about this will probably just move to another region and participate there. Then on top of all of that, their and only their system is a mix of trainer and non-trainer battles, while everybody else specializes in trainer battles only, but a test of who’s better is going to be resolved by trainer battle. So even if they actually were somehow producing stronger trainers than anywhere else, those trainers would still be at a disadvantage in any direct trainer vs trainer contest, and we can be reasonably sure they’re actually underperforming in every respect instead.

I can’t wait to find out!

Admittedly, Hau is a bit hard to read and it’s entirely possible that watching the system he’s trapped in get torn apart by mainlanders is something he’s secretly hoping for.

A little further, a fisherman says, People like to say that Tapu Bulu destroyed the supermarket in its rage, but that’s not right. It’s the people themselves who were to blame! What did they think would happen when they built a shop on land that’s sacred to the tapu?

So sounds like I’m not the only one thinking they wouldn’t like new construction on top of that mountain.

I wonder if this is his opinion or majority opinion? Evidently enough people thought it was okay that they built a supermarket in the first place. And does he really feel this way or does his victim-blamey bit come from a place of fear over what the tapu could do to him? Is he trying to get on their good side by vocally supporting their decisions? Was there, in fact, little or even no way of knowing it would anger the tapu and he’s just pretending there was so he can also pretend he personally is safe and that the world isn’t an arbitrary place full of capricious gods destroying things whenever they like?

Hm. Maybe we’re seeing three different groups overall – guys like this who are hardline traditionalists who don’t want to do anything that might make the pokegods angry and won’t admit there’s anything wrong, Team Skull and mystery kahuna who are actively disrespectful and angry, and a middle who don’t say anything explicitly against but will say “Tapu Bulu destroyed the supermarket in its rage” rather than the preferred traditionalist “why did you make the tapu hit you?”