Alright, so I go back to Aether, again, and back to the labs, again, and this time I hit a cutscene.
Wicke: Bonnibel. Welcome back.
I still have no idea what’s with her.
Wicke: I have to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for Miss Lillie and Madam Lusamine.
Maybe you could’ve done something…? Because you’re an actual adult…?
Wicke: Miss Lillie asked me a last favor before she left. She wanted me to explain to you why she and her mother had to go to Kanto.
I feel like this is something Lillie really could’ve told me herself.
Wicke: You see…while we do not know if it was because of Nihilego’s neurotoxins, her fusion with that beast, or the strain of the Z-Power…the ill effects of this episode on Madam Lusamine’s body and mind have been undeniable. She has hardly roused since.
Okay, and this is an argument for Lillie getting the job of carting her near comatose mother around because…?
Wicke: But Miss Lillie found a ray of hope in a book that she remembered reading long ago. It was regarding a man named Bill, who invented the Pokemon Storage System used in our PCs. This inventor, who lives in the Kanto region, once combined himself with a Pokemon in an experiment that apparently went awry…
Just like Lusamine…/Why would he do that?
God fucking damn it game.
It was not anything like Lusamine, and I don’t even need to have played the games in question to know that, because accidentally fused in an experiment and merged through the unknown abilities of a sort-of-but-sort-of-not-pokemon are obviously not the same thing. However, the second is also a stupid response, because it requires Bonnibel not know what “awry” means.
I suppose Why would he do that? could be referring to what the experiment was supposed to do if it hadn’t screwed up.
Wicke: I suppose it was the same sort of curiosity that led him to develop our storage system.
NO. JESUS H CHRIST GAME. WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING TO REFERENCE THINGS IF YOU’RE GOING TO IGNORE THE ACTUAL EVENTS YOU’RE REFERRING TO.
Wicke: The records of this event, however, say that he was separated from the Pokemon by using his Teleporter and a Cell Separation System. Perhaps the same sort of procedure on Madam Lusamine will be able to remove the last of the beast’s poisons from her system.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve seen all game. Is there a different team involved in the postgame plots now? Or is it that by this point they’re just scribbling madly while the editor is busy? Because this is starting to remind me of the incoherence of the Delta Episode’s script.
Wicke: That is what Miss Lillie was hoping when she headed to Kanto.
Because she couldn’t just call Bill and have him explain that the only reason he was fused was because of the teleporter in the first place, despite the fact this very game opens up by demonstrating Kanto/Alola calls are entirely possible.
Wicke: It pained me greatly when both Miss Lillie and young Master Gladion left Aether Paradise…but I am so proud to see the fine young people they have become.
What exactly do you have to be proud of here? Your complete refusal to do anything to help this happen?
Wicke: Even sheltered little Master Gladion tried to patch up his own clothing, he said, when his partner Null tore them…
And then he gave up and just wore red shirts underneath.
Wicke: Oh! I’m sorry. You probably aren’t interested in hearing about that sort of thing, are you?
I’d much rather actually be talking to them, admittedly. Because you’re awful and the script keeps assuming I don’t hate you.
Wicke: Here, please accept this.
And now I have another big malasada. Yay…? Now I have another one of the dozen full heal clones in a game where you can heal status effects after battle for free.
Wicke: … … … Oh! And take another, too!
Why.
Wicke: Now I’ll be returning to Secret Lab B so that I can get back to work.
Because that’s so much more important than YOU, THE ADULT, dealing with Lusamine.
I enter one of the labs.
This may be a bit sudden, coming from me, but I’d like you to have these.
And now I have DNA splicers. Yes, that’s a bit sudden.
Also the prison bottle! Again, yes, sudden.
And soul dew.
They are all Pokemon-related items that Madam Lusamine planned to put in her collection…
And you recognized that I too am a poke-hoarder.
But you know…even if it comes from the desire to keep all of your beloved Pokemon beside you always…using Pokemon moves to put them into a cryogenic sleep is too much.
Yes, digital stasis is much preferred to the more bulky cryogenic option.
The Pokemon who sleep now…I will keep them safe so that they can someday return to their previous state…
But not, like, just thaw them out. That’d be going too far.
I check out the other lab but apparently there’s some still more secret lab that Wicke’s vanished into, as there’s no sign of her.
I try the park area, where the employees are still giving me their dialogue about the ultrabeast from the very first time. Really, you guys, can’t you update this?
And there’s Gladion! So I’m even intended to be wandering around here, despite the fact the samey dialogue gives me every sign I shouldn’t bother.
Gladion: So you came… I guess I’ve got to thank you again for all you’ve done for my family…
I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more.
Gladion: Especially…for Lillie.
So, so sorry.
Gladion: I never knew she could smile like that. My mother’s desires to reach Nihilego…and what she did in order to achieve that goal…I know she was completely out of control. But that doesn’t mean I can’t understand it. It was my father who started it.
So we’re doubling down on family-is-all, AND we’re adding in a dad when at this point like all this plotline had going for it was it was a mom mattering for once.
Gladion: He was the one who first confirmed the existence of Ultra Wormholes and Ultra Beasts. But my father… He disappeared during an experiment. Trying to connect to an Ultra Wormhole. All he left behind was a weakened Cosmog and his papers about Nihilego… Lusamine’s obsession with Ultra Wormholes…and her obsession with Ultra Beasts… I think it was all basically her way of trying to reach him again.
Wow. I really was not expecting it to get this bad. I had just come to terms with the fact her kids aren’t allowed to reject her, because yeah, Japan, and now this. She doesn’t even get to actually matter in the story – she’s just a proxy getting moved by the more important events that happen to the dad. And it doesn’t even make sense – Lusamine’s obsession with the jellyfish friends was just one aspect of her obsession with controlling/possessing cute things, and if she wasn’t always abusive, why can’t Gladion remember his sister smiling before this?
Gladion: That’s what I had to believe. To get through it.
Though I suppose this could mean this is all lies and Gladion just can’t bring himself to admit there was no outside force warping his otherwise good mother, but at the same time, he’s telling me it as fact and both children are acting based on it even now.
Gladion: It’s not an apology or anything, but… I hope you’ll take this fellow.
And now I have a frankendoggy.
(I mean, it’s a lot better than how poor Lillie’s arc went, but I do feel like Gladion should just have taken the other nulls. People who really love pokemon shouldn’t hesitate to have multiples of the same species. I guess we could say that each null will need a lot of care and he’s not sure he can give that to another one…but he’s handing it to somebody who’s got boxes upon boxes of pokemon already languishing. Or maybe he feels like the best thing for the null is to go hang out on the islands with my other pokemon?)
Zzzrt?! This Pokemon.. I don’t even know how to describe it… But my circuitzzz are tingling!
Huh. What exactly is the connection between Rotom and the actual functioning of the pokedex?
Due to the danger that this synthetic Pokemon may go on a rampage, it wears a control mask to restrain its power.
That’s really weird. I guess it’s wrestling with the fact that, reasonably, we non-evil-organization folk ought to take off a control mask, but it’s a vital part of the character design. And that “synthetic” adjective, while possibly just there to fit in extra information, sure sounds like it’s intended to connect to “rampage” – maybe Mewtwo’s main legacy is everyone assuming synthetic pokemon are the devil and should be kept on the shortest leash possible.
Gladion: And I’ll give you all the memory drives that let its Evolution, Silvally, change its type…
Christ. Now we’re capitalizing that. Dammit game, you were almost good with the kahunas and tapu! Why must you betray me now.
Also, how the hell did they have a type changing system that would only work on the nonexistent evolved form? I’m willing to accept it evolving since it’s made of pokemon chunks that sure don’t look carefully designed and pokemon evolve all over the place, but I draw the line at them knowing it’d evolve and building a system that works solely for whatever way that unknown evolved form would be different from the one they actually had. Especially when new pokemon evolutions keep getting discovered and making it clear that no scientists can predict evolution from the base forms.
Gladion: This is a different Type: Null. Not the same one I ran away with…
Does Gladion really think I pay him so little attention I wouldn’t notice his pokemon had evolved? Or is it just this was scripted before someone else decided we needed him to appear for a rival battle before the championship?
Gladion: It was kept in Secret Lab A. Its very existence was a secret. But I think I know you well enough. I think I can trust you to show it the world.
That’s interesting. So a major issue isn’t handling the creature, it’s handling everyone else. Another point for Mewtwo ruining everything, perhaps? Mewtwo was barely even synthetic in game canon, but perhaps when there’s a murderous rampage, people look real hard for ways this can’t possibly apply to all the other pokemon they’re familiar with.
Hmph… Maybe it’s time I see a bit more of the world myself…and starting with that Pokemon League, I think. I hear that Alola’s got a real strong Champion.
:( nooo Gladion go to Kanto and fight an actual respectable League.
Well, that’s it for him.
Back to champion-only cave area, full of people who really don’t seem like they could’ve won a championship!
Oh hey the bird! The purple bird! It’s a ghost type. That’s…kind of weird, it just seems awfully physically there for a ghost type.
If the wings were gauzier and see-though, I think it might work. Or make this one psychic and the pink one fairy or whatever, since fairy appears to be the miscellaneous of types.
It summons the dead with its dreamy dancing. From their malice, it draws power with which to curse its enemies.
And I can see the connection, buuuut the thing is, ghost pokemon aren’t supposed to be pokemon that interact with ghosts. When you’re completely immune to getting punched in the face, your character concepts can’t be both “ghost” and also “not ghost”. Talking to incorporeal things a bunch doesn’t make you incorporeal.
Also, there’s a pool. Barboach!
My pyukumuku just affection-survived getting hit by fissure.
Its slippery body is hard to grasp, so much so that there are festivals where people compete to see how many they can catch barehanded.
My L40 Null is a bit delicate for a L55 area, I decide to retreat for now and take it on a wonderful journey across the islands collecting pokemon I missed.
Happiny!
It’s too small to lay eggs yet. As a surrogate, it searches out round white stones.
And indeed, mine comes with the oval stone needed for evolution.
Aeons later, a sudowoodo finally bothers to show up.
Apparently, the larger the green parts of this Pokemon, the more collectors value it. It’s a particular favorite among elderly people.
I fight so many tiny exp drops that my wailmer levels up and evolves.
Its immense size is the reason for its popularity. Wailord watching is a favorite sightseeing activity in various parts of the world.
Nothing about eating them? I am disappoint, game.
Anyway after a million stupid stone bonsai I’m just going to friendship up my munchlax. On to the next, misdreavus!
…a million zubat and gastly later…
If you hear a sobbing sound emanating from a vacant room, it’s undoubtedly a bit of mischief from Misdreavus.
Faking it doesn’t seem like it fits with how misdreavus appears to actually be a severed head, but then, what if it only looks like that to mess with people in the first place?
(One of the limitations of videogames, sadly, is that it’s very hard to tell when something’s supposed to have varied looks. Do misdreavus shape themselves based on their needs at the moment, and it happens to be that head with tatted neck bits is a generally good option, or do they really all share the same appearance on a genetic (or whatever) basis?)
I then evolve it into the much less severed-heady mismagius. Honestly, not a big fan of this one – you really can’t go anywhere when you start at severed head. Adding more bits on just reduces it.
Mismagius have been known to cast spells to make people fall it love, so some people search for this Pokemon as if their life depended on it.
And what does that even have to do with being a ghost that feeds on fear?
And with that, I’ve finished the catchable section of Melemele island! Still have a few to evolve/trade to get evolutions, though.
My pyukumuku just affection-survived getting hit by fissure.
For some reason, this line almost made me spit out a hearty mouthful of wine. It’s a OHKO move, for crissake!
Also, wow. Mini-Farla was not kidding when he strongly implied that the conversation in the Aether Paradise would be abominable. Is this a new thing? Deus Ex Dad? It’s so vital to any narrative that a dad is important that they’ll literally drop it after the story is complete?
Fuck all that in the ass. The thing that really hurts is that I’m now compelled to search within myself for a headcanon that lets Lusamine be a single mom for actual reasons, and I actually can’t think of one offhand. It is figuratively killing me.
She’s technically not a single mother, but after the father is revealed to actually a space-jellyfish semi-pokemon-thing from another dimension, it’s close enough. That’s what I got from thinking about it offhand. But out of curiosity, what’s so painful about that thought?
The design of Lillie’s father is just kind of weird to me. He looks like he’d be a random NPC on the docks of Wind Waker that tells you about a key item you’ll be needing in a bit. Were they going for a sort of Ugly Guy, Hot Wife gimmick or something here? I can’t see that; he’s not bad looking enough for that. You’ve gotta make the character at least as stout and square as Sig Curtis for that. There are a ton of other old man type characters in Pokemon (mostly gym leaders) with way more character than him. He doesn’t even have a portrait on Bulbapedia, just a screenshot of his 3d model.
How is a character with a design that lacks even the trace of impact even tangential to the plot, let alone actually important? It boggles the mind.
She’s technically not a single mother
Yes, she is. I’ve been reading all of these posts, and I’ve never read a single word about Lillie and Gladion’s father. Lusamine being a single mother is a completely valid assumption, supported by 99% of the game’s text until now.
But out of curiosity, what’s so painful about that thought?
So, previously, I was just taking it for granted that Lusamine was a single mother. Maybe the fact that all of the Poke-Moms (i.e. the protagonists’ moms) are married should have clued me in to the fact that Lusamine is, too. Still, her marital status came as a surprise because I was just that willing to believe otherwise.
Now, though, because we have canon confirmation that Lusamine is not a single mother and in fact is still pining over the father of her children to the point of neglecting and abusing them in her quest to reunite, I have to completely rewrite her narrative in my head so that the father is just some inconsequential schmuck who was just her ticket to her real obsession, the nihilego. Maybe she didn’t even want her kids, and only had them because he wasn’t researching otherwise.
But now? Now my wine-addled brain has to give specifics, and Lusamine’s character itself is working against me. She’s a character that captures and preserves that which she enamores, so the simple idea that the father is lost to her is already showing cracks. I thought of a sperm donor first; the idea that she just picked the cutest guy out of a list did appeal on some level. But she’s too personally controlling for that to work. She didn’t seem the type that’d be okay with that. The exact abuse that briefly made her such an effective villain makes her irreconcilable with the backstory the game is trying to sell us.
Gonna stop with that now and address the rest of you, because what the actual fuck, this is not how I want to spend my evening.
The design of Lillie’s father is just kind of weird to me.
I’ve literally never looked at him. He’s not important.
How is a character with a design that lacks even the trace of impact even tangential to the plot, let alone actually important? It boggles the mind.
All you need to be important to Game Freak is to have a Y-chromosome. You should read the other Pokemon LP’s. It’s worse than the Fate Route of F/SN.
… Okay, uh… for some reason, when I said “single mother” in that post, I meant, like… asexual reproduction. A literal single mother. Alone. Without another parent. Ever.
Don’t ask why. I can’t answer that question. It makes about as much sense as why “the father is actually the jellyfish monster” would be the first thing to spring to my mind when I tried to come off with a offhand reason.
I’ve literally never looked at him.
I only ever looked at him because he was listed in the family section of the wiki’s character template and I clicked all of them. Standing next to Lusamine, he’d look like a typical sitcom spouse-pair.
… Okay, uh… for some reason, when I said “single mother” in that post, I meant, like… asexual reproduction
I… hope you can understand that I didn’t make that connection. I am curious as to why you did, I suppose.
And yeah, I’d totally see the father being an ordinary guy compared to Lusamine’s ridiculously overblown beauty (those hips are geometrically impossible). That’s just what the world wants us to believe is possible.
I, ugh, if we were really just talking past each other on the single mom thing, then I have no other thoughts to give you, really. Sorry, man.
Dude, I didn’t even realize that’s what I meant until I read your response, no worries about it. I’ll be sure to tell you if I do figure out why. I think it might’ve been something along these lines: “You’d only thought she was divorced or the husband had died or something, but in actuality, she had her kids with an interdimensional jellyfish monster”. Which doesn’t actually explain why I’d take “single mother” to mean “asexual reproducing woman”, so yeah.
Anyway, to be fair, relationships like that are possible. It’s just not possible when the unattractive guy also happens to act like your typical overweight sitcom dad (which Lusamine’s husband might, I don’t really know), regardless of how attractive his wife is (and if you want to level a systematic complaint about it, I’d go with the fact that its far more common than a hot guy with an ugly wife). Sig and Izumi Curtis are a great couple despite how much more attractive she is than him, but what little we see of Sig indicates that he is a pretty damn great guy all around and a fantastic husband. He just looks like a shaved bear because Hiromu Arakawa grew up on a farm (and that is literally her reason why Fullmetal Alchemist is full of so many men shaped like Alexander Armstrong).
I’m pretty sure his design is supposed to be more “unassuming, friendly guy” and he looks like he does because he’s not trying to look like anything else (no longer a fancy, rich scientist, no longer with Lusamine caring about how he looks, post memory loss and just chillin’ with a bunch of pokemon.) You can see the similarity to Gladion’s hair in the design.
So… he’s actually supposed to be easily mistaken for a random NPC who exists solely to populate the world and deliver a line or two of flavour text?
Huh.
Yep.
So the actual situation is Guy loses memories, Wife goes nuts and children suffer while Guy is just happy being just a guy.
Which is an entirely different systematic social values issue.
Daddy being frozen with those pokemon? I mean, “disappeared without a trace during an experiment” sure doesn’t sound like someone’s covering her ass or anything.
The thing is, he’s actually been mentioned by name earlier in the game and we even actually see him. [kinda spoilers but not really because it’s already been brought up in the game?] Mohn. He’s Mohn, the guy who runs the pokepelago islands. He’s lost his memories of his pre-nihilego life and woke up on the islands and decided to just start making them fun for pokemon. The reason for the memory loss becomes apparent in the post-game story, although no in-game characters ever connect Mohn to who he really is.
I’ll leave you guys to decide how absolutely bizarre this writing decision is.
Intentionally feeding him to a wormhole as a part of the experiment it is then. Not as thematic, but still better than canon.
She only likes pretty things. So she likely picked him for his looks, but either he started aging badly OR he turned out to have some personality flaw that made him ugly, like not doing everything she said as soon as she said it.
I suspect she was never as into him as she was her kids, as her kids will naturally resemble her more.
I’m choosing to believe that Gladion’s report and recollection of Dadamine’s disappearance is colored by wishful thinking, and that he and Lusamine were equal partners in the investigation. But at some point he got cold feet and Lusamine pushed him into a wormhole so she could keep investigating and looking for Nihilego and step all over Guzma in her spare time.
Honestly, if we assume Lusamine isn’t secretly a great person who only recently went nuts, I’d say that she never really cared much about him (if she’d really loved him, she’d have iced him before he could age). And I don’t see why she’d reward such an unworthy creature with a visit to her perfect precious beautiful beasts, so I’d go with legitimately an accident, but an accident that happened because Lusamine gave precisely as many fucks about him surviving as she does Guzma.
Alternatively she may have attempted to use him to wedge the portal open on the basis he was within grabbing distance at the same time she realized this was a problem that needed fixing, but, that useless asshole, he just got sucked in instead.
Silvally isn’t actually an evolution. Look at it closely — it doesn’t change at all besides removing the mask. It functions like an evolution because game mechanics, but it seems to function differently than everything else. And remember the notes from the lab — the accessories were designed for the unmasked form, but they had to implement the control mask because it was too unmanageable.
I’m disappointed you get the null so late; the game just dumps all the memories on you at once, and you have to evolve it before you can even use those. I actually think a game with Type: Null as a starter could be really interesting, where you get the memories to develop it slowly over time.
Yeah Silvally should really be a forme unlocked by an item that’s only useable when it’s at high happiness, but the game isn’t set up to let it change names upon forme change too. Bah.
I don’t really get why it needs a different name in the first place. Like, okay, “Type: Null” is an awful name, but nicknames can fix that already. Mewtwo doesn’t get a new name just because his scientists had no imagination!
This is actually a really good point, because silvally’s pokedex entry reveals that “Silvally” is just the nickname Gladion gave his evolved null.
And this is why you shouldn’t have ten year olds be the world’s only taxonomists.
I did notice that I could see what look like the head feathers under the collar.
I actually think a game with Type: Null as a starter could be really interesting, where you get the memories to develop it slowly over time.
Well, you could do that! Only real hurdle would be cheating up a low level null to trade over to the new game.
I mentioned it before but it probably got lost… anyway, you should check out a miniature post-game quest sometime before engaging in the main post-game story (especially since the levels for it are lower and doing it later makes it incredibly easy as opposed to just easy). It’s activated by talking to the sleazy-guy looking cashier in the Thrifty Megamart near the Battle Royale building.
It might have been in a different area or maybe earlier in this area, but I remember a strange bit of flavor text saying there were 3 nulls. There’s Gladion’s, the one you get, and I’m assuming the last will either be forgotten forever or become an event pokemon. But it is very strange that he didn’t mention the third. Maybe it’s in an ice block with the others and they don’t know how to safely thaw them despite 50% of the convenience stores on the globe selling thawing in a spraybottle.
And also shit I entirely forgot Mohn being their dad. I remember his backstory just because it was something to think about while I groaned over having to wait through the charizard flying there animation every morning for pelago egg grinding but… Argh that doesn’t add anything to their stories at all, he’s the Bill but he couldnt even do this Bill role because he’s stuck on this-isn’t-a-damn-app island. I didn’t like Mohn before and now I have to worry that badass little Gladion who kid me would have had the worst crush on ever will grow up and get fat. At least pokemon is the new peter pan :C
I like to headcanon Gladion gave Lillie the third Null as her starter.
That seems like a somewhat irresponsible decision.
Why so? Lillie already has experience raising unruly pokemon from Nebby, and she is probably a nicer person than the player character. Gladion probably had even less experience when he ran off, and his turned out fine.
Well, to be fair, if you asked me, I’d probably have to say that both giving one to the player character and letting a girl who isn’t an expert pokemon trainer already raise a weird sentient proto-star from another dimension would’ve also been pretty irresponsible actions as well. Giving even the weakest pokemon to kids, let alone legendaries, is pretty irresponsible in general. Dealing with legendary pokemon seems like something you shouldn’t tackle before your fourth badge, let alone as a starter pokemon or one you raise unofficially before becoming a trainer or anything like that.
Imagining being the Day Care owners and some little jerk wants you to watch his kyogre for a few days.
Neither cosmog nor silvally have the power level of actual legendaries, though. Again, if Gladion of all people could raise one successfully, Lillie should have no trouble.
True, I was thinking more about what a cosmog eventually becomes.
Dealing with legendary pokemon seems like something you shouldn’t tackle before your fourth badge, let alone as a starter pokemon or one you raise unofficially before becoming a trainer or anything like that.
Starters are among the strongest pokemon in the game, actually. A number of them outperform a good chunk of legendaries. From that, as dangerous as pet pokemon can be, it seems like people are far more worried about the wild pokemon a trainer will run into than the pokemon they already own.
(And really, my sub-50 team all easily outclassed Nebby.)
They’re not that dangerous at the level you get them at, though. Sure, they have better stat growth and all that, but by the time they’re a level 50 powerhouse that can solo even the most hardcore legendary pokemon, you’ve been raising them for 45 levels and should have the experience to handle that level 50 powerhouse.
She didn’t have battle experience, but unless the events with Lusamine added fifty levels in one go, she had experience handling a higher level, opinionated pokemon. And given that Gladion survived with no experience at all, I’d guess nulls are among some of the easier pokemon to raise safely.
A lot of the story makes more sense if we assume Nebby was around level 50 from the start. Lillie had 0 badges obviously, and Nebby might even count as a traded pokemon given that she stole it. It’s absolutely no wonder it was constantly going off on its own. It was never a pet to begin with.
Yeah, and it’s not like it would’ve gotten a ton of levels from the period where she has it in her possession. That actually does make a lot of sense. I’m not sure why I didn’t think to include that in my reasoning, since it’s kinda the assumption I was working under to begin with.
You know, now that I’ve thought about it…I think there’s a good case Lillie getting a null is canon.
There’s three. Gladion takes the first one. When he meets you, well after Lillie has already expressed her decision to become a trainer, he gives you one. Gladion loves his pokemon and wouldn’t leave any of the null in icy pseudodeath. If there were still two left, he’d have told you to take two or else have a second one the next time you battled him.
Maybe it’s just that it’s out of sight and out of mind, like the third starter that just sits on Oak’s desk for the rest of eternity. I wouldn’t put it past the narrative of a pokemon game to do this.
Speculation ahoy!
If they indeed are setting up for another Kanto-set game where Lillie appears, Lillie getting a pokemon that can basically act as a starter and evolve into something that can have any of the starter-types would be a quick way to give her a canon starter regardless of the player’s choice that has the same type dynamic as a traditional starter would with the player’s (the way Gladion’s is done in his pre-league fight).
So, what you mean is, basically the thing that they did with Gary in Pokemon Yellow and his eevee? Alrighty then, sounds cool to me.
Makes sense, even by pokemon standards it seems odd she wouldn’t ask any of her trainer friends for a pokemon. Not even an alola form as a memento. My pet theory wasn’t so much that he left it to psudo-death but that a late production decision meant he gave you one instead of both so the final became an event pokemon or fell into a plot hole.
The thing is, there’s no reason for the game to ever want us to have a duplicate null. The extra cosmog is obviously for trading sake, but everyone would already have a null.
Normally, multiple pokemon are there to give us a choice. There’s three different starters so you have three options. There’s two different fossils so you can pick one.
If there was some reason why there had to be three nulls in the first place, it’d be quite plausible the writing team just didn’t care about the third one. But there’s only a third one because they wanted there to be a third one for some purpose – and even if there was a plan changed at the last minute, it’s not like it comes up much, they could just have changed the three to a two. The script of this seems nothing like the rush-job nonsense of ORAS, either.
Yeah I’m choosing to believe the stuff about Bill is wild rumor and speculation based on Red/Leaf’s account of seeing him The Fly himself. Of all the early installment weirdness to bring back, I would not have picked that one; it just raises way too many questions, like what the hell happens to your brain when you’re unconsensually fused with a pokemon. (Creepy story idea though.)
Maybe it’s his version of the story? It’s not that teleporters are prone to malfunctioning and fusing you with another creature, it’s just that he was choosing to do some weird experiement and it backfired, and buy more Bill-brand teleporters today, they’re definitely safe!