Rivals, part 5: N

So. N next? Shall we do N?

Well, you’ve done Champions, and you’re doing rivals, and he’s neither but he sort of acts like both, so it seems like as good an excuse as any.

My thoughts exactly.

Do you know what his full name is?

I do; do you?

Just learned it. “Natural Harmonia Gropius.” N is short for Natural.

Bizarre, isn’t it?

So does that mean that Ghetsis is Ghetsis Gropius?

I don’t think so; from memory I think his full name is Ghetsis Harmonia. There’s a bit at the end of Black and White where he tells N something like “you’re not worthy to share the name ‘Harmonia’ with me.”

So what does Gropius mean? That he’s a horrendous womaniser?

Not a clue. Maybe if we Google it…

Don’t image search it.

Why?

I don’t want to know what comes up when you image search anything with the word ‘grope’ in it.

No, it’s totally fine; apparently there was a famous German architect named Walter Gropius who lived in the early-to-mid 20^th century. It’s all just photos of him.

Oh, okay. Yeah, actually, I think I’ve heard of him. Bulbapedia seems to think that’s what the reference is, too. Doesn’t give any suggestions for why, though.

It’s weird, and I have no idea why Gropius specifically, but I guess an ‘architectural’ name… sort of fits with his characterisation, with his mathematical theme. You know, how he’s obsessed with equations and is supposed to be some sort of mathematical genius or savant or something.

He is? Really?

Yeah. He talks about his quest in terms of “solving an equation to change the world;” he sees everything in terms of numbers and formulae. And I think Game Freak have actually said, explicitly – like, in interviews and such – that his first name being ‘N’ or ‘Natural’ is supposed to be a reference to ‘natural numbers.’

Mmm. Now that you mention it, yeah; looking at these quotes I can see that. Like here, when he rides the Ferris wheel with you in Nimbasa City – “I love Ferris wheels. The circular motion… the mechanics… they’re like collections of elegant formulas.”

Yeah, that’s a really good example, actually. He likes to break things down and see them objectively, through numbers and physics – which is an interesting trait, for a character who’s portrayed as being very emotional and idealistic.

And apparently he doesn’t know that the plural of formula is formulae.

Ah, I think I forgive him for that one; it’s a common enough word in English that I think we’re justified in giving it an English plural.

I don’t.

Well, there’s a shock.

It should actually be genitive plural. “Collections of elegant formulas.” Partitive.

So… you want him to say “formularum”? In… English?

Yes.

…of course you do.

Moving on from all that, though. What do you think of N?

Ghetsis, N's 'father' and the leader of Team Plasma's Seven Sages.

I’m very fond of him. I think N is what makes the story of the fifth generation ‘work,’ the fact that we have this sort of ‘anti-villain’ character who is, in a lot of ways, objectively a good person but happens to be on the ‘wrong’ side. He’s the reason I still think Black and White have the best story that Pokémon’s given us so far.

It’s really interesting to watch the developments in his mindset as he travels during the game and realises that what he’s grown up believing just isn’t what the world is really like. It’s a shame about the truth/ideals thing, though, how the words are used interchangeably and just mean ‘really, really wanting stuff,’ because it would have been really cool to have him develop differently and interact with you differently depending on which of the dragons you were each working with.

Well, that would have been quite a bit more work, in fairness; you almost have to write two different storylines. It might have been quite difficult to write the version where he’s partnered with Reshiram and you’re partnered with Zekrom, where he’s standing for ‘truth’ against your ‘ideals,’ just because the default story is almost the opposite of that.

Mmm, not necessarily. I don’t think it would be that difficult; you’d just focus more on his growing realisation that his ‘truth’ is built on Ghetsis’ lies, and coming to accept that he needs to find a new way of seeing the world. N and Reshiram are both searching for truth, and the irony of it is that the truth is deliberately being hidden from them by their own allies. The games as they are don’t do much with that.

Fair enough. In some ways I think not giving more differentiation to ‘truth’ and ‘ideals’ is a big missed opportunity for N’s characterisation, actually, because if they really are distinct virtues instead of being basically the same, the way the games make them, N has traits that work well with both. ‘Ideals’ is obvious because N’s idealism, his determination to create a radically different new world and change all of civilisation at its core, is what drives the plot of the whole game, but I think he also works really well as an exemplar of ‘truth,’ because of his obsession with mathematics and physics, with seeing the world in an objective way and ‘solving’ societal problems like mathematical equations.

How do you feel about N’s ending? Because I think both sets of games, Black and White and the sequels, leave him hanging just a little – not in any huge or glaring way, but enough to be nagging. Like, he demolishes the Pokémon League, sets up this enormous castle around it, and then he flies off into the sunset without ever doing any of what he set out to do. He’s lost his belief structure, realised that it’s all built on lies, and… now what? It makes sense for him to fly off in search of some new truth, but what about his ideals? Where are they now?

I don’t know; I think where he is at the end makes sense. Even though he’s changed a lot, he hasn’t given up on the ideals he held, not really; at the end of Black and White 2 he still wants to change the world and change society – he talks about “freeing Pokémon and humans from the oppression of Pokéballs,” he just doesn’t want to separate them like Ghetsis wanted him to.

So he wants to make a world where people and Pokémon are friends without Pokéballs?

Like things were before Pokéballs were invented.

Eh…

No?

Well, maybe, but N is a biased source on that – it seems like this is still kind of an extension of everything he was brainwashed into believing. You need your crazy brainwashed…

Messiah.

Ghetsis' creepy-ass Black/White 2 costume.

Yes. Green-haired messiah. You need him to think all that, to believe that the world only is the way it is because of some horrible mistake. Everything N knows and thinks is based on a mythology created by Team Plasma. His beliefs about people and Pokémon and Pokéballs are the result of a warped image of human history and society that was fed to him by Ghetsis. I mean, I’m not saying there’s not some truth to it, and of course you can make friends with Pokémon without Pokéballs, but he’s still idolising a period of history that he wasn’t alive to see, one that we don’t know a whole lot about either, and making it his model for the future. It seems to me like what he says about that is just him clinging to the one shred of his mythology that still makes sense in the aftermath of everything that’s happened. After all that time, he still can’t shake that indoctrination.

Hmm. I’ll have to think about that. I think we’re ‘supposed’ to take him quite seriously when he talks about this stuff, because the whole point of Black and White is that there are some very real merits to the philosophy that the ‘bad guys’ are pushing, and N embodies those merits. Still, you’re right that N’s been wrong before, and holds some seriously warped views for a long time before you and your Pokémon can convince him otherwise. In any case, we’re almost certainly never going to see the world that N had in mind; it would just change the series too much, force Game Freak to throw away a lot of their formulaic stuff. So unless he does wind up all but abandoning his beliefs in favour of the status quo, he probably never gets a really satisfying resolution.

Unless he goes to Ranger land.

Yes, I suppose that’s true. Places like Fiore prove that it’s possible for humans and Pokémon to live together in the way that N envisions.

I really like Black and White, and N is a critical part of that, but I feel like riding off into the sunset at the end sold him short. Obviously they needed him to come back for the sequel, and they needed to leave him some loose ends to pick up for that, but I wonder whether that balance was achieved. Bianca’s story is very nicely resolved, Hugh’s is very nicely resolved, Cheren’s not so much, he just kind of peters out – I have fewer problems with N than I did with Cheren, but I do have some.

Hmm. Fair enough, I suppose. His ability to talk to Pokémon – what do you make of that?

Maybe he’s half Pokémon? Test tube baby? Genetic engineering?

Well, I… have to admit I wouldn’t really put it past Ghetsis… he was responsible for Genesect, after all. Or maybe N was conceived by the midi-chlorians. Do we think Ghetsis is his biological father? They both have green hair.

Well, yeah, but they’re Japanese; that means nothing.

Point taken.

Oh, this is interesting; I didn’t know this.

What?

Apparently N’s text speed is faster than all the other characters’, to show that he speaks quickly. That’s kind of cool.

Yeah; I didn’t notice that when I played the first time because if you have the text set to ‘fast’ anyway N’s speech isn’t significantly faster, but if you know to look for it and go back, you can tell. Anything else in there you want to talk about?

Hmm. Apparently Junichi Masuda has said he’s “rumoured to have been born from Pokémon.”

Hmm. Is that from an interview, or…? Ah, here we go. Hmm. There’s a whole list of little bits of trivia about N from the developers on Masuda’s blog.

Well, that makes our job easier.

Eh… I don’t know about that; it’s sort of disconnected. I think this is basically notes from the development of the games, when they were bouncing ideas off each other about how to portray N. And I think they may have put it into English through Google Translate, or something similar. Still interesting, though, even if most of it is stuff you pick up from the games anyway… Huh. Apparently N “thinks himself perfection.” I guess that explains the messiah complex.

Sometimes I think I’m perfection.

Yeah, I know that.

Damn right you know I’m perfection.

:-p

Members of Team Plasma do call N “child of the Pokémon” sometimes, come to think of it. And the writers definitely seem to have intended him to be somehow more than human, to have had supernatural powers of some kind – well, maybe ‘supernatural’ is the wrong word, but some sort of psychic abilities, certainly. Some of the stuff in Masuda’s notes seems to say that he can see the future, and his ability to talk to Pokémon probably works based on a heightened sense of empathy.

Mmm. Some kind of psychic power is probably about right. What does he do in the anime?

Not sure. I think the anime mostly follows the games fairly closely by that point, so I would imagine his role isn’t hugely different, but I haven’t seen any of the relevant episodes.

Let’s look it up… Hmm. Seems like he’s… sort of a combination of how he is in Black and White and how he is in the sequels. He has the Light Stone and Ghetsis imprisons him and steals it; then Ghetsis controls Reshiram instead of N. And N helps to arrest Ghetsis and Colress and the members of Team Plasma.

So… wait, he’s not part of Team Plasma?

Apparently not. He used to be, but he’s already left them by the time he meets Ash, along with… Hmm. Who are Anthea and Concordia?

The 'goddesses of love and peace,' Anthea (left) and Concordia (right). Or... is it... Concordia on the left and Anthea on the right...?

They’re the two women with the gold and pink hair who hang out in N’s castle, and later join Rood’s Team Plasma separatists; they’re like… N’s childhood nurses, or something. They’re mostly in the game to provide exposition, I think; they tell you a lot of the stuff we know about N’s past, since he doesn’t really talk about that much himself.

Oh, right. Them. Where are some quotes…? Ah, here. “N was an orphan. I heard that right after he was born, he upset people with behaviour that suggested he could talk to Pokémon. When he was living in the woods with Darmanitan and Zorua, Ghetsis took him in. We are also orphans Ghetsis took in. Our task was to take care of N.” Yeah, they’re just exposition-whores.

Okay, so he’s definitely not Ghetsis’ biological son, then.

Well, probably not. Who knows what kind of f#$%ed up way he might have come up with to raise his fake messiah? Maybe dumping babies in the middle of the woods to grow up with Pokémon was all part of the bizarre, twisted plan?

Mmm. Perhaps. Anyway… these two are weird – it doesn’t come up in the English, but in the Japanese version, and a lot of other languages too like French and Spanish, it seems like the game is very insistent about referring to them as ‘goddesses’ or ‘muses.’ The game really seems to want them to be important, and they’re in the intro cinematic to Black and White as well, which makes it seem like they’re going to be important…

But then they never do anything, and by the time you actually meet them you’ve forgotten that you ever saw them in the intro in the first place.

Yeah. I kinda feel like maybe Anthea and Concordia, in an earlier draft of the story, might have had a more important role that subsequently got written out, because the game doesn’t normally bother with unique models or names for incidental characters unless they’re going to matter.

Meh. They don’t do anything in the games we have; not much point speculating about what they might have done. Are we done?

I think just about.

I have one more question – why does N help you? In Black and White, why does he encourage you to grow and get stronger?

Well, he needs you. N’s basic understanding of the whole plan in Black and White revolves around the notion of re-enacting critical events from Unova’s mythology. He thinks that taking on the role of one of the legendary heroes will give him some kind of authority, make people listen to him – but there are two heroes in the legend, which dictates that he needs a rival to test himself against and represent the opposite worldview, otherwise he’s just some yahoo with a legendary Pokémon and there’s no point. Ghetsis thinks it’s a waste of time, but doesn’t have any choice but to indulge him. I suppose that lends some perspective to what you were saying earlier about N idolising the past.

Yeah… everything he does is about recreating the mythological past, like steps in a ritual to purify the world. Team Plasma and Ghetsis gave him a way to ‘fix’ everything, and he clings to it beyond all reason because of his obsession with mathematical patterns and natural cycles. Historical and social changes don’t work like that; magic doesn’t fix everything. Or even necessarily anything.

Unless maybe it does? This is the Pokémon universe we’re talking about here, remember.

Agree to disagree?

Always.

Are you open to the idea of not fully evolved pokemon getting megas? I think it would be cool to have megas for vigoroth, scyther, magmar, electabuzz, rhydon, and dusclops. Maybe they could make mega pikachu, but the light ball already gives it mega stats, so the boost for weaker pokemon like that would have to be proDIGIous (see what i did there?), like +200 base stat points.

I’m actually kind of surprised we haven’t already seen a Mega Pikachu. I’m not in the habit of making predictions, but there’s a tentative one for you; Pikachu will eventually Mega Evolve. Having said that, this is sort of a tricky question – not for gameplay reasons because, like, sure, whatever (most unevolved Pokémon would need much larger stat increases than normal in order to be worth using over another Mega Pokémon, but there’s no reason we can’t give that to them); more so for whether and how it fits into the world. At the Tower of Mastery in Shalour City, the Guru calls Mega Evolution “a transformation of Pokémon that were thought to be unable to evolve any further,” and while it’s pretty clear that the characters in X and Y do not by any means know all the rules of Mega Evolution, not even him, I think it’s telling that the writers would choose to emphasise the fact that only fully-evolved Pokémon do it – he actually mentions this before bringing up the fact that it’s temporary, which seems like it should be a more important point. I think there may be an idea in play that, because Mega Evolution “transcends” normal evolution, because it’s above and beyond normal evolution, it would not make sense for Pokémon to be able to do it before completing their normal evolution. Unless the evolved Pokémon can also Mega Evolve (in which case why are you even using the younger one?) then evolution for that species would become a loss, a sacrifice; it would mean being cut off from this “transcendant” state. I don’t think Game Freak would like that notion.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

There’s a fair bit of ninja pokemon: Greninja, Ninjask, Accelgor, Toxicroak, etc. Just for fun I’m going to add a Ninja Type. The pokemon that gamefreak chooses to exude ninja-ness are mostly composed of Poison, Bug, Dark, and Fighting types, so if we put those traits together, it’s weaknesses include fire, flying, ground, fairy… oh no! Those are the worst common type weaknesses, and we should throw in a weakness to pirate type attacks, but at least it resists fighting and ghost.

While you’re at it, I have a few additional new Pokémon types to suggest:

– Light (blinds you with bright lights; Grass-types are immune)
– Sound (deafens you with loud noises; Grass-types are immune again, because f&%$ you, that’s why)
– Taste (incapacitates foes with overpowering spices; strong against Psychic)
– Steam (because we have Water and Ice)
– Science (Fairy and Science are weak against each other)
– Antimatter (using one against a Pokémon of a different type annihilates both of them)
– Human (is actually an enslaved Pokéfan in cosplay)
– Potassium (like Steel but weak against Water and strong against bananas)
– Furniture (is good to sit on)
– Scottish (strong against Rock, Steel, Dark and alcohol, weak against the English)
– Spiders (not like Ariados or whatever; actually made of millions of tiny spiders)
– Hard Cheese (should require no explanation)
– Soft Cheese (similar to Hard Cheese but obviously is softer)

If you were to give meganium a mega-evolution, what would you make it’s stats, ability, and typing be? I’ve always thought atanky + support mega meganium with filter as it’s ability would be nice.

Eh… well, the thing about Meganium is that her main problem is a bad movepool, and Mega Evolution doesn’t actually do anything to fix that. Adding a new type to her would be nice, but it’s also kind of difficult because she doesn’t really learn any attacks outside of Grass and Ground (due to the rule that Grass-types Don’t Get Nice Things), and I don’t know if Ground makes sense for her. Mostly Meganium trades on her support attacks – Aromatherapy, Leech Seed, Dragon Tail, that sort of thing – so buffing her defences is kind of a no-brainer, and a nice defensive ability like Filter can’t hurt. Something like Grass Pelt might be more flavour-appropriate, but it’s not like Filter really has a consistent link to any particular kind of power anyway (I mean, Mr. Mime and Mega Aggron? What’s the common theme there?).

I drew Fisher

THIS DOES NOT MEAN I AM LEARNING TO DRAW

IT JUST MEANS I FELT…

…what’s the word for… like ‘inspired’ but when you’re going to do something horrible like invent a new way of murdering kittens? Well, yeah, I felt that. Besides, Psyduck is relatively easy to draw.

Fisher the Psyduck is a character in my ongoing Nuzlocke story of X version. He has a Brave nature and the Cloud Nine ability, and as of the most recent episode he is level 12 and knows Scratch, Tail Whip, Water Gun and Disable. Fisher is a self-proclaimed “Blessed Apostle” of the Church of the Helix, and has come to Kalos from far away to spread the glorious teachings of his anarchic faith. So far, he is responsible for exactly zero conversions, but his zeal remains undimmed.

X Nuzlocke, episode 3: Cat’s Paw

Route 4

???: [calling] Oh, help me! Please, won’t someone help me?
Spruce: Do you hear that?
Ruby: No.
Spruce: It sounds like someone’s in trouble!
Ruby: Oh, the tragedy of this cruel world. If only someone could help them. Alas.
Spruce: Ruby, we can help them. We’re powerful adventurers; this is what we do!
Fisher: Surely this is divine providence, my friends! The Helix leads us ever onward to new challenges, and we must not shirk them!
Melissa: Yeah! The hive sent me out here to fight and get strong, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do!
Spruce: Well, that’s settled, then.
Ruby: [sigh] I repeat: alas.

Continue reading →

I always found it odd that Butterfree can hold on to harden and string shot, and there’s also stuff like Gorebyss with shell smash and iron defense. The pokemon should logically forget those moves, but then players would be angry when their masquerain loses sticky web. Not sure what I’m asking; just… ramble about it. Also: HOW DOES SHROOMISH INHERIT FOCUS PUNCH????????????????? (note: it couldn’t back when the TM existed)

Well, in fairness, is “stiffen[ing] all the muscles in its body to raise its Defense stat” really any more ridiculous than all of the other stuff Butterfree can do? Whirlwind, Solarbeam, Dream Eater? Electroweb, for goodness’ sake? I mean, the fact that Butterfree can learn Electroweb surely implies that she can still produce silk of some kind, even though we don’t normally expect adult lepidopterans to do that. Gorebyss seems weird, but she actually has a higher physical defence score than Clamperl, so there isn’t really any reason Iron Defence should be inappropriate (especially since, on really any non-Steel-type, we should probably assume that it’s magic). And Gorebyss does in fact have shells; they’re just this… kinda weird… impractical bra thing. Actually harder to explain Huntail, but again, very high physical defence stat there. Maybe they both have calcareous scales or something. As for Shroomish and Focus Punch… well, this is why I normally refuse to deal with specific moves on specific Pokémon.

I believed Pokémon Amie was the first good step for pokemon agency baby step wise. Do you agree? I think Game Freak might do a little bit like what you said otherwise they stagnate. Do you agree? I think they will dive into the history of pokemon more or settings wise in the past. Do you agree? I think you are a maniac. Do you agree?

Yes, no, no, hell yes.

Chansey and Blissey are those pokemon that everyone hates, but always avoid getting banned. If either or both of them got a mega evolution, how would you handle it (besides “don’t”)? For me it would be to crank up Blissey’s special attack and special defense with a little sliver of extra defense and make it Normal/Fairy, and I imagine that would be gamefreak’s mindset, which may be enough of a drastic powerup to push it into ubers, but you usually have different approaches to these things.

Funnily enough, I’m kind of okay with the idea of Mega Blissey being a thing, because at the moment we have this weird situation where Blissey is actually overshadowed by Eviolite Chansey, because Blissey’s main advantages over Chansey are greater special attack (who cares?) and Leftovers (meh, they have Softboiled). That… brings up an interesting point. Evolving into Blissey doesn’t actually make Chansey significantly better at her core role: her HP and defence only increase by minuscule amounts, and Chansey is already so good at special defence that Blissey’s extra points aren’t a huge deal (besides, Eviolite). The real difference is that Blissey can actually use attacks. So… if we’re doing a Mega Blissey, why not embrace that? Put most of her mega evolution bonus points into special attack and speed. Either leave her other stats as-is or only give token increases, maybe even cut her special defence a bit (there’s precedent for that; Mega Garchomp is slower than regular Garchomp). Looking at something like [255/15/15/135/120/100]. Do some kind of vaguely seraphic design, lots of feathers and too many wings. Add some gold to the colour scheme. Make Serene Grace her sole ability, or even make a jacked-up version that triples the odds of weird stuff happening, just for fun (Thunder with 90% paralysis chance FTW!) – if that sounds like too much, remember that Blissey has no good special STAB; even if we go Normal/Fairy she’s only got Dazzling Gleam, which doesn’t synergise with Serene Grace (EDIT: correction; Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby have a move tutor for Hyper Voice – still, that doesn’t work with Serene Grace either). If there is even a slight chance of a weird-ass [Gravity – Blizzard – Thunder – Fire Blast] set becoming a thing, I’ll be happy.

Rivals, part 4: Hugh

What kind of a name is Hugh, anyway?

…um… Germanic, maybe? It doesn’t sound like a Latin or Greek root. Google it?

Doing it now. Hmm; Old French, apparently.

Oh, right; that makes sense.

Ultimately from a Germanic root, though – ‘hug,’ meaning ‘mind’ or ‘spirit.’ And it gets into Mediaeval Latin from there. Declines as Hugo, Hugonis.

That’s disgusting.

What, ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’?

No, Mediaeval Latin.

Oh, that goes without saying. It’s an appropriate name at any rate; Hugh certainly isn’t lacking in spirit.

No indeed, burdened with something of an overabundance of it, I would think. What do you think of him?

I like that his storyline provides a link to the old games, as someone who was personally affected by what happened back then. He makes the whole thing seem more real, shows us the wider consequences of all that plot. And he sets up conflict with the ex-Team Plasma guys, Rood’s bunch, which would otherwise fall flat because the player just isn’t going to have the same emotional reaction to them and is going to listen to them with a bit of a more neutral perspective.

Mmm. I think it’s important to have someone like Hugh in the story, someone uncompromising, because one of the important themes of those games is the idea that recognising that the ideas of people who are opposed to you can be important and valuable – like, the problem with Team Plasma, the way the games present it-

Besides secretly wanting to take over the world.

–well, yes, besides that, their problem isn’t that they want to change the way people relate to Pokémon; their problem is that they’re uncompromising. They’re zealots. You see that most clearly in Castelia City, with Burgh, because he actually says explicitly that he wants to incorporate some of their ideas into his training philosophy; he thinks they have a point, and they absolutely do. They refuse to make that kind of concession to our side, though. And I think it’s important to have Hugh in the game as someone on the ‘good’ side who is equally uncompromising, just to stress that you can have that kind of problem from both sides of a conflict, because there isn’t really a ‘good’ character like that in the original games.

What about Cheren? He’s pretty black-and-white, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Oh, I think the pun is entirely appropriate; I think that’s very much a part of what the developers meant by choosing those titles. But go on.

Well, Cheren is fairly uncompromising in his attitude to Team Plasma; there’s never any question in his mind that they could be anything other than thugs. He’s still pretty hardline about them by the time Black and White 2 come around.

True, but Cheren in the original games sort of has surprisingly little involvement with the Team Plasma storyline. Looking back through it, it’s actually really weird how little he does. He helps you in the really short fight at Wellspring Cave, then again when you corner Zinzolin and a bunch of grunts in Driftveil City, where he actually seems totally dismissive of them – he talks about fighting them for Clay so that he can get stronger, like they’re just target practice for him. Then he… goes to the Dragonspiral Tower with Brycen, but they don’t show up until the party’s over, and he’s there when you fight Team Plasma in the Relic Castle but doesn’t say or do anything important; likewise at the final showdown with N at the palace of the Elite Four. I don’t think he ever says a single word to either N or Ghetsis again after you first meet them in Accumula Town.

Whereas Hugh gets involved pretty much every time you meet or fight Team Plasma in Black and White 2 and has lots of dialogue with them; I see your point. He has personal motivation that Cheren doesn’t, and his emotions ride a lot higher. Cheren’s much more distanced and logical about the whole thing. Still, Hugh and Cheren do have a lot in common, aside from Hugh being so much more hot-tempered. They sort of bond a little, don’t they?

Do they? As I recall, Hugh is rather prickly towards him. You remember that scene just after winning your first badge, outside the Gym, where Hugh is waiting to challenge Cheren? Cheren says he needs to go back inside and get ready, but Hugh get mad and calls him a coward or something because he wanted to have his challenge right then and there, in the street!

Oh, Hugh’s attitude improves later, after his Gym battle. “Cheren sure knows a lot, and he fought those Team Plasma thugs too;” that’s from the part where Cheren teaches you how dark grass works – Hugh comes to admire his skill and conviction very quickly. Which sort of makes sense, because Hugh’s a lot like Cheren was in the first games, in the kind of singleminded drive he has. Cheren doesn’t have any direction, though; he just wants to be stronger for the sake of strength itself, whereas Hugh has a very clearly defined goal; he wants to get his sister’s Purrloin back, or, failing that, avenge its loss. Actually, when you think of it that way, he sort of combines Cheren and Bianca’s most important personality traits into one character – he’s like Bianca in that he’s enthusiastic and energetic, and wants more out of strength than just being strong, and like Cheren in that he’s determined and focused.

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it like that; that’s a neat way of looking at it, structurally. So, moving on… if you remember when we played Black and White 2 together http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/tagged/b2w2, we had this sort of running joke where we thought Hugh was a bit of a psychopath? A couple of people were actually a little upset by it, I think.

Ah, it was all in the spirit of fun. How much of what you write is ever 100% serious?

I kinda did mean it, though! Well, some of it, anyway. The stuff his own damn parents say about him in Aspertia City-

Wait, he has parents?

Yes! Hang on, I quoted them in the entry; let me just find it… here http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/39827151998/white-2-playthrough-journal-episode-1-where-the. Yeah, when you talk to his mother she says that she hopes you’ll keep Hugh on the right path and stop him from getting into trouble because he’s – and here I quote – “the sort of person who lets his rage build up inside him.” And his father starts to say “his goal is…” and then just trails off ominously. I mean, really, how the hell was I supposed to take that?

…well, after lines like that I think everything else you said was entirely justified. Doesn’t he kind of blow up at someone early on for being careless with their Pokémon?

Yeah, outside Floccesy Town when the farmer’s Herdier wanders off and he screams at them because it could be lost or dead or whatever. And there’s that whole obsession he has with his own rage…

Don’t forget his ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude towards all Team Plasma, including Rood’s guys. Kid does have his ‘ticking time bomb’ moments from time to time.

In fairness, Hugh’s attitude does make a certain amount of sense eventually, once you get his backstory. Even his outburst against the farmer in Floccesy Town – I mean, I still don’t think that was reasonable, but coming from someone with his particular background, it’s understandable that he might feel that way. And, like, to be completely fair to him, there actually was a Team Plasma operative skulking around when that Herdier got lost! I mean… kind of a low percentage contingency there, but still…

And he gets better, too.

Mmm. That’s basically his whole character development right there – learning to take a more nuanced perspective on everything that’s happening in Unova while still retaining his core ideals. And that kind of culminates when he does his Inspiring Speech at the… y’know, the meteor crater, where Kyurem lives…

The Giant Chasm.

That’s the one. You know, when Rood shows up with a bunch of Team Plasma separatists to… I guess, like… stage a peaceful protest or something similarly useless, and Hugh encourages them to fight for their beliefs, recognising now that they’re fundamentally on the same side as him despite their past actions.

I remember. I think what I got from that mostly sounded like “you may be a vegetarian, but the time to eat meat is NOW!” They’re pacifists in the first place because their Pokémon are ones that they stole as part of Team Plasma and they think they have a duty to help and protect them now. The ideals that Hugh asks them to sacrifice are… literally what separates them from the people they’d be fighting.

Mmm.

And what good does it do, anyway? You and Hugh are both there, and who are you fighting anyway? A bunch of grunts? And Rood just has a bunch of his own grunts. Are they really going to be all that helpful?

Well, I think the idea is more that there are a lot of Ghetsis’ minions around, and it would take you a while to deal with all of them. Rood’s forces can help you to push through more quickly. And I would imagine that Rood himself is probably comparable in skill to Zinzolin, so he’s not exactly a pushover. Besides, however much we pick at the rhetoric, it does work.

Well, yeah, but Team Plasma grunts aren’t exactly hard to influence. He asks them “why do you have Pokémon by your sides?” and if actually you think about that for a minute, the answer is… well… because they stole the lot of them two years ago, haven’t been able to return them to their original trainers for one reason or another, and feel responsible for taking care of them. The idea is there, the spirit is there, the eloquence…

Is wanting.

It doesn’t really help that Hugh doesn’t quite seem to know what the word ‘ideals’ actually means.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think anyone in the entire fifth generation knows what the word ‘ideals’ means, not even Zekrom. Or ‘truth’ for that matter.

Oh, they definitely don’t know what ‘truth’ means. But back to Hugh. Is his head a durian?

A… durian?

Yeah, the fruit. His hair looks like a big blue durian.

I always placed him as more of a hedgehog, actually. Sorta reminds me of Sonic, now that I think of it. So, uh… does this mean we’re running out of things to say?

Well, I think that whether Hugh’s head is a durian is a very important question, but I suppose we could wrap it up.

I guess if I had to sum up Hugh in one phrase, really at any point in the story, it would be “the ends justify the means” – which, again, is interesting because it’s the same kind of attitude that typifies Team Plasma, and a lot of other Pokémon villains as well, actually, particularly Maxie and Archie.

He puts his own ideals ahead of those of others.

Exactly.

At the same time though, he’s one of the most ‘complete’ people at the end of the story. The games leave him in a place that makes sense; he’s learned a lot and he’s more of a whole and happy person. He even gets Purrloin back in the end – well, Liepard now, but still – and in the process he’s managed to find it in himself to forgive the ex-Team Plasma guys in Rood’s faction.

Yeah. I still think he’s a bit nuts, but I really like the perspective he adds to the game and how he shows us someone who was personally affected by Team Plasma’s past actions – and gives context to Rood and the separatists’ desire to atone for their crimes. I think people tend to regard Black and White as better games than the sequels, but the sequels do a lot of things right too, and Hugh is one of them, more or less!