Last time, I got to actually go into one of the ruins for the first time! Nothing much happens, but still, it’s cool.

I make my way back, stopping to go ask that asshole saying I can’t pass without kahuna approval if he seriously means that entire chunk of island has been completely off-limits with no possibility of entrance this whole time. Instead of answering me, he just repeats I can’t go by with permission.

Back in town, Lillie and Hapu!

Lillie: Thank you, Hapu! And thank you, Mudsdale!

Hapu: That’s what friends do.

Still kinda annoyed you didn’t just say, “Hey, so why do you need a kahuna? Oh, just for lore? Well, I know…”

Lillie: F-friends…? An amazing Trainer like Hapu considers me…a friend?

Also really feel Hapu’s just a redundant main character. We’ve even already got a redundancy, Hau, to also believe in her.

Lillie: Thank you, Hapu! I will not give up, no matter what!

Hapu: To journey to Exeggutor Island, you should speak with the chief of the sea folk. I shall be wishing for your safety!

At which point Lillie, being proactive, heads right for probably-a-criminal-guy.

I could go deal with it, but, my free leveling over on the training island has more pokemon ready to go, and there’s some berries I could collect.

I evolve my pancham into pangoro.

From the slight twitches of its bamboo leaf, it deduces its opponent’s movements. It’s eager to tussle but kindhearted to its companions.

He then learns bullet punch, because gangsters use bullets maybe?

I’m also not sure what to make of the pokedex combined with type. So, regular fighting pokemon are often said to love fighting to the exclusion of all else, and if you tack on /dark…you get something “kindhearted to its companions”?

Magby also evolves.

When angered, it spouts brilliant fire from all over its body. It doesn’t calm down until its opponent has burned to ash.

That sure sounds like something not suitable for most trainers.

And that’s all for berries. Back to the plot.

Did you find her? asks seriously pretty sure this guy is a criminal.

Lillie: Yes! And Hapu was made the new kahuna!

Oh-ho! Now that’s a joy to my ears. Her old grandfather must be smiling down on us.

So that’s another “no” for an actual meritocracy.

Lillie: Yes. Hapu will do her best for her late grandfather…

I’m guessing this is partly to be a mirror to Hau, except Hau is really not important enough to need one, so it’s more stepping on his toes. I barely know Hapu and her grandfather’s been dead since long before this, and there isn’t even much relatable sense of doing a job that really needs to get done (because the tapu could’ve picked a kahuna any time and clearly weren’t fussed about it) so there’s not that aspect of continuing work a family member invested their own life in.

Lillie: as I must do my best for my mother’s sake. And for Nebby’s, as well.

Or you could stop caring about your mom, who, again, is probably either dead or totally fine while Nebby is obviously hideously injured.

Lillie: A-and so! There’s a place that we need to go!

Exeggutor Island/To find the flute

Yet another one that isn’t really much of a choice, but it does allow me to decide if I want to explain myself or just give orders. Bonnibel, naturally, sees no point in saying what she’s looking for.

Exeggutor Island…? Oh, you mean where the flute is!

Not that it matters, of course.

Well, you two did meet the kahuna already…

Again, what happens if there is none? Is everything just put on hold indefinitely?

and Poni’s captain ain’t around anyway, so I guess there’s no point waiting on any trials…

Considering I’ve been everywhere I’m allowed, those trials would have to be past that dickhead saying I need kahuna approval, which would suggest no one’s been doing trials on this island for years.

All right! The S.S. Magikarp will have you there, and you’ll think you’re sailing in a dream!

One quick cutscene later…

Hah… Here we are at Exeggutor Island! I heard this place used to be a trial site, though that was a long time ago.

Presumably before people were functionally banned from coming here. How is that even enforced? Why can’t I just surf over here myself?

You go on. Good luck to you both!

Lillie: Let’s go find that flute! Right? Trainers really can go anywhere as long as they have their Pokemon, can’t they?

No, I am pretty sure this whole section is hammering in the exact opposite of that lesson.

Lillie: I think I’m beginning to understand the appeal.

Yeah, ruin of hope and all.

This doesn’t even make sense. Lillie’s known from the start that trainers are better protected and more able to travel. She just hated seeing pokemon get hurt, so she chose not to take part.

Now, you can make an argument that pokemon like battling more than they hate getting hurt, or that it’s better for them to be able to take care of themselves in a pinch. Showing Nebby wanting to be a battler but her hesitating because she was overprotective and now thinking that if Nebby had been battling these last few months it might’ve been able to escape would work fine for the inevitable opinion change that training is great.

But this is all framed selfishly, and that’s always been the core problem with trainers. There has always been appeal on the human side – it’s the question of if you do what appeals to you or consider what your supposed best friends want.

Anyway, now seems like a good time to ignore the intended sequence. I fly away to the Ruins of Life.

I find a not particularly more difficult block puzzle and another unreacting statue, but it’s nice to do anything off the railroad tracks for a moment. I go back to the island of exeggutors.

Lillie: I feel like Trainers can open u the door to any future as long as they have their Pokemon. That’s what it looks like to me when I see you, Bonnibel. And Hapu and Hau, too! She walks up to a tree and we start hearing sounds. Ahhh! What is that, Bonnibel?!

Ah, and it’s an exeggutor. This’d have been funnier if there hadn’t been exeggute on the other island and an easy way of getting piles of stones. It’s actually really weird…there’s a very short time between the two, so there’s not much point in them being on the other island. Another sign there were too many people working on this for any coherent vision?

Archen’s evolving.

They hunted in flocks. When one Archeops had the prey cornered, another would swoop on it.

Hm. That might actually work well with their ability – when badly injured, pull back and let your companions finish the fight.

Also my formantis, at last. Is this another time based evolution?

Lurantis. The stripes bug me.

It fires beams from its sickle-shaped petals. These beams are powerful enough to cleave through thick metal plates.

Which is powerful, given we know steel resists grass.

She then learns petal blizzard, but that’s as strong as leaf blade. It hits both in a double battle, but doesn’t have the increased crit chance. I guess I’ll try it out. And there are items to produce a crit chance but not hitting both.

Lillie: Phew… That was an Exeggutor, wasn’t it? I think that the good weather in Alola has let it grow a bit more vigorously than I’d prefer!

Actually, given that this is the native range of palm trees, it suggests the ones we see in other areas are stunted by bad weather.

This one is really interesting to me, especially with “dragon” being close to “paragon” in type meaning. They’re also weak to cold, and the other areas are clearly colder than here. Combine that with how a lot of psychic types have the idea of improved psychic abilities at the cost of physical stunting, and perhaps the opposite happened here – general physical stunting, combined with an environment unsuited to their subtype, led to them developing mental abilities instead.

I continue on.

Lillie: Oh! It’s started to rain… We head into a nearby overhang. Rain on Alola, huh… My skirt got a bit wet… Looking out at the rain like this…reminds me of this one time when I was little. I’ve seen it in a movie…this man singing and dancing in the rain. It captivated me so much that I had to try it for myself. My mother spotted me out in the rain, and she was so shocked that she ran right out after me without even bothering to get an umbrella. And then…she smiled…and she danced with me in the rain. Of course, we both ended up catching cold. She let me sleep in her big bed with her. I was so happy that I kept waking her again and again, just to be sure it wasn’t a dream… But…then she changed. And all she would think about was the Ultra Beasts.

Lillie…not to ruin your happy memories, but the fact you couldn’t believe your mom would let you sleep in her bed (and by implication, spend time with you period) when you were a little kid points to her always being a terrible person.

And Null and Nebby… They both ended up suffering so much…and I couldn’t do anything… But you know what, Bonnibel? Whenever I feel like there’s nothing I can do, you seem to show up and…you do something.

I also think she’s underselling her own actions. She’s already turned on her mom and tried to save Nebby, rather successfully, before we arrive. As I said earlier, while it’s much better integrated than previous games and has finally lost that thing where the NPCs ignore me to talk to each other, there’s still the sense that the main character isn’t really a part of the plot we’re seeing here.

Every time, you’ve shown me that it’s possible…to do something. Even the first time we met… Nebby was being attacked, and all I could do was look on in horror… And at Aether Paradise…all I could do was wait for you and the others to save me… Whenever I’m in any sort of trouble, you’re always there…

Here’s a thought.

I’ve outlined a version of Bonnibel, that explains why she’s pretty fearless. But why get involved? Maybe because, even though she vocally disapproves, it does mean something to her to run into someone who so visibly cares about pokemon – who doesn’t like to see them hurt, who risks herself to protect them, who doesn’t use them for her own gain. In her own way, Lillie’s vulnerability is actually somewhat like an actual pokemon’s – she’s victimized by physical threat in a way trainers never seem to be, all because she won’t use pokemon as proxies.

Of course, given the inevitability of plot, viewed that way, this ends rather sadly. Those things about Lillie are going away. Lillie is putting aside who she was to become more like Bonnibel, and in the process, becoming less like the person Bonnibel acted to help.

I… Um… Bonnibel? What are you doing to do…once you finish your island challenge?

Fill my Pokedex/Get stronger/I don’t know

What an interesting question.

Traditionally, my answer was to fill my pokedex, but I don’t play and replay these days, plus I guess there’s just so many pokemon combined with it being so easy to get any given one. And really, filling the pokedex was just a more defined version of what I really wanted, which was to see every corner of the world I could. Also, I think Bonnibel doesn’t have much in the way of direction – I don’t think she cares enough to really concern herself with it.

I don’t know

Lillie: Oh, thank goodness… It’s such a relief to know that even someone like you feels unsure at times, Bonnibel.

Not really what I meant.

Lillie: I want to become a Trainer, and learn all the things you know, Bonnibel…

Really not what I meant.

Lillie: … … … … … … Ah! The rain stops. Lillie runs out, looking up at a now-dark sky decorated with shooting stars. Maybe there really are good omens sometimes, wouldn’t you say?

Then she runs off again.

I find her again at the top of a small hill, where there’s a small shine with the flute resting in the center, completely exposed to the wind. How has it not been blown away by a storm? Maybe that’s part of what everyone finds sacred about it.

Lillie: Bonnibel!

Then, suddenly, narration!

A flute is place on a very old pedestal… Will you take the flute?

Yes/No

Game, you know if you ask me something like this I’m just going to say no to find out what happens.

…nothing. I am now standing beside Lillie in silence. Why doesn’t she just take it?

Interacting with either Lillie or the pedestal just repeat the cutscene. I take the flute.

Lillie: Now we have both the Sun Flute and the Moon Flute! I don’t know if it will really summon the Legendary Pokemon, but we can at least try! If nothing else, we’ll have sounded the flutes in offering like people used to do. So thank you for coming this far with me, Bonnibel! Let’s go meet the chief of the seafolk and get back to Poni Island!

Lillie I have flown to and from this island a dozen times already.

This time we do get a cutscene yoink, but it’s approaching the endgame, so that works okay.

Look at you, trial-goer! You going to the altar to play the flutes? The altar lies all the way through the Vast Poni Canyon.

So, what exactly stopped anyone from doing this before? You don’t seem particularly fussed about us heading off to do a thing that people clearly have not done in a very long time. If the sky was currently cracked in half, it’d be rather obvious, but it seems like only the kahuna directly encountered the non-pocket-monsters and know there’s more going on.

It’s a long road there. That path is like nature’s own trial. Good luck to you, friends.

…I guess I’ll take “nature’s own trial” over crap like “pitch-black screen trial”.

And why don’t you stop by and tell Hapu that you’re off before you go!

We don’t have a choice because that asshole is blocking the way until we get kahuna permission, as you damn well know.