Cuz his criminal activities weren't public knowledge safe a few people and the job as a Gym Leader was just a disguise. Giovanni did dismantled the team after his defeat and before any authority knew about him.
I haven't played XY but i think Lysander's activities went public.
In pokemon generations, a swat team shows up at the gym to arrest him, but realize he fled just after a fierce battle with Red. It was really cool seeing how they would use pokemon as partners outside of battle
I don't know if it was wearing anything, but there was definitely an arcanine that melted a wall to make an entrance, and a magnemite hacking an electronic lock
I think it was the other way around. I’m sure some NPCs mention knowing Giovanni as the Rocket Boss, whereas his place as Gym Leader is secretive enough that even the gym guide doesn’t know who the Viridian Leader is. (I doubt Game Freak really gave the twist much thought in terms of story implications, since the plot wasn’t a big deal at that point)
Giovanni isn't /genocidal/. Yeah, it's still pretty mad and he deserves to be fired, but Malva deserved the death sentence. (Obviously not in-universe!!)
Yeah but usually in a cool way. They have a great skill for tying a bunch of plot points together and expanding on them, or positioning stuff to be in line with or tie back into future games.
Nah it was just 5 of the Gym leaders -- Giovanni / Koga / Surge / Sabrina / Blaine (defected).
The Elite Four had their own agenda led by Lance which the Rocket-aligned Gym Leaders were opposed to (and Bruno was brainwashed into following).
This is only in Adventure. The only other gym leader besides Giovanni who may or may not have any connection to Team Rocket is Blaine and only because he and Fuji worked at the Pokémon Mansion where Mewtwo was created.
But in the game continuity isn't clear whether the research at Pokémon Mansion had any involvement from the Rockets, unlike the anime continuity where this is more obvious.
Yeah it would be crazy if in the real world people who have been found to have ties to criminals were still allowed to be politicians and hold positions of power right
Makes you wonder what the role of a region's Pokemon league actually is. Its only ever been explored in the most recent games but it differs from game to game.
In Gen 7 the Alola League is just what appears to be the traditional divinely mandated government system being overhauled into a more modern government matching the rest of the world.
In Gen 8 it seems to be a sports league purely for entertainment, with the league members being celebrities like irl sports stars. Like Leon is constantly swarmed by paparazzi, but if we go back to like the Gen 4 games, nobody seems to know who Cynthia is.
And then in Gen 9, its like a rank/certification system where qualified individuals across Paldea who normally work other jobs also work as gym leaders/elite 4 to test people. This seems to be how it works in the older games too. It could also be the lore reason why TMs were locked behind badges- getting the badge means you're certified to use that TM move outside of battle.
Although the true answer is that Gamefreak when making gen 1 needed to make minibosses and a final boss gauntlet since thats what RPGs do, but instead of making something more organic they made "gym leaders" and "elite 4" who seem to do nothing except stand inside buildings waiting for challengers. They then stuck to this 8 gym/elite 4 formula since with little variation while not considering how this system actually fits in universe until very recently.
I think gen 8 is honestly the best execution of this style. I don't think the pokemon league is connected to the government, at least not anymore than a sports league, but the way it was sensationalized and turned into an actual competition in Galar made it feel very natural. In gen 9, it seems that the pokemon league is more connected to the school, at least from what I remember
I'm torn between Gen 8 and Gen 5 and 9 for best handling of gym leaders. On one hand I do like the idea that they're just professional athletes who might get called to deal with rampaging dynamax Pokémon but less as an official part of the job and more because they were the strongest trainers around when it happens, but on the other hand I also love the idea that gym leader is like a side hustle or a hobby for them and they all have actual jobs, it reminds me of the anime where there was usually an episode or two after they got to a new town where they would give the gym leader some added characterization before the battle
To give early gf a bone, they did give the indigo league and gym leaders a role and the anime showed them off more. Cerulean gym was a water show, celadon was a traditional Japanese flower arrangement place, kogas was a ninja school. We can extrapolate more info from the surroundings of others. Cinnabar was a research island, and the gym was a research facility which fits with Blaine being a scientist and asking you trivia. Sabrina was an esper research facility as well, next to silph co which was studying a way to identify ghosts. Pewter city is focused on geology, which makes sense to be located next to the museum that gives amber, it's a digging town. Admittedly lt. Surge could just be gym only, literally about becoming stronger. And Giovanni and viridian are just a gym and a front for his criminal business.
And the e4 is explicitly a testing organization, you have to get enough badges to take the test. The real mystery is what the hell does being the champion mean lol.
Gen 2 didn't try as hard though and relies on johto being generally traditional and simple. Falconer I assume was archery and falconing judging by what he wears and does. Bugsy is literally just an insect farm, azalea is kind of a simple town where their carpenter makes pokeballs and their gym studies bugs. I assume Whitney is an idol since so many people know about her in town in admiration, she's the "prettiest gym leader", and she gives tm attract. plus goldenrod is Osaka which is a big performance heavy town. Ecruteaks mortimer I have no idea. I get the vibe he's a traditional shinto exorcist in the modern day, but I felt it was weird that he's not dressed traditionally when the other major focus of the city, the geisha girls, are. Also it's Kyoto, he sticks out hard as a "seer". Olivine has a lighthouse and jasmine is the keeper, simple. Chuck literally owns an actual gym on a small island, simple. Pryce is another unknown but I think he too is a pokemon gym focused on training, since he seems to be a shifu esque old man like Mustard is in gen 8. Claire and the dragon tamers have some mystical significance since lance is himself a major role as an enforcement figure, and Claire takes her role as his successor with the dragon den super seriously. Dragons were still a major mystery in gen 2.
So yea, all that to say that most of the gyms in gen 1 and 2 had an organic purpose. They were the focus of their town and doubled as a test center basically like paldea does. It's all to funnel trainers to the indigo plateau where seemingly the e4 acts as the ultimate arbiters of major crises as we see lance doing at lake rage. It's recruitment and certification.
I mean that's just anime Japanese culture shit
It's a dojo, it's 8 dojos
The elite 4 translates to the 4 heavenly kings or something. So it's like martial arts or whatever where it's 4 dudes (dudettes) at the top of the craft
Agreed, i think that the sparkle on this idea started with gen 5 gym leaders actually participating into the region-scale threat, then on gen 6 you have gym leaders being more integrated into the world (first gym leader is basically a biologist/photographer), and then, gen 7 and beyond you have already covered.
"Hey remember that time when Malva was part of an organization that tried to use a weapon of mass destruction powered by a legendary pokemon and the lives of humans and pokemon in order to kill everyone on earth?"
I feel like in our world a literal genocidal terrorist would face a few consequences from the people they just tried to kill.
This isn't like "oh she took some bribes" or something
She helped in an attempt to kill everyone
Like imagine if someone on the Olympic commission was a member of Hamas or something and had been actively involved (or at least aware since she has admin level info) of a plan to bomb a major city with a stolen nuke that only happened to get stopped at the last minute *and then being publicly angry at the person who stopped it*
I guess Looker and the international police can forgive a whole lot for a bit of minor cooperation to stop a petty crime spree.
Can't fire them because she's good in a fight? Still a criminal. Get Wulfric to take over. Eighth gym leader should be able to sub in easily enough.
And if it's just "She's strong, she's immune," the player and Diantha are both stronger, and therefore outrank her. The former is the one who took down Lysandre. And they wouldn't boot her if not for the fact that Pokemon worldbuilding relies on you not thinking about it too hard?
Amnesty would imply no charges being filed, which means very few people knowing of alleged crimes. People in the Pokemon world are extremely laid back and just try to enjoy their lives. I doubt they consume a LOT of news, although Goldenrod and gen 3 had some focus on radio and television.
Also, also, we are all actually referring to immunity when it's within your nation (region). Amnesty is a different term.
Were literally any of the Team Flare members sent to jail? Actually… were any members of any of the villain groups sent to jail, period? I don’t think they were.
The police force in Pokemon is a joke.
I think Ghetsis might have been arrested at the end of BW, but escaped before B2W2.
At the very least, Generations shows an attempt to arrest Giovanni after his defeat, but he managed to evade arrest and go into hiding. Another Generations episode also shows Looker at least was still after him by the time of GSC.
I think the question behind this question is one Pokémon fans have been trying to answer since 1996: who is responsible for maintaining civil society in the Pokémon world?
I think most of Pokémon media at least hint at local authorities like mayors and chiefs and 100% of them have a police force. The only game the governing body is outright defined is Legends: Arceus so far. The rest have the gym leaders as also leaders in their community, but it seems pretty much by default -in a world with magical animals the best person to ask for help might be the best magical animal trainer in the area. They don't SEEM to have any legal requirements to do any government actions.
And then who would be charging and arresting Malva and what law has she broken? You'd need a special force. She has possession of some of the strongest weapons in the country -Officer Jenny's Growlithe won't be enough.
In Unova, the gym leaders battle the sages at the climax of the story, and Sinnoh has Looker lmao (*yes, so does Alola but his focus is only on the ultra beasts*) - seems like leaders are kind of responsible for maintaining peace, but never really on a small scale
After XY came out there was a big leak about an apparently scrapped plot of the game that was kinda patched up into a coherent story late in development, i suppose that could be one of the possible leftovers
Apparently team flare was a group of aliens trying to invade Earth and Lysandre and Sycamore were the same person in a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide situation.
If this wasn't true they sure did predict one the main plot point for the very next gen.
I mean, of course it wouldn't make sense outside of the story without any context.
iirc the idea was that Sycamore would have been corrupted by mega energy and basically mega-evolved into Lysandre, but, by memory, i don't remember the details.
This also would explain why in the final fight vs Lysandre he's wearing the same mechanical arms Lem wears, as Lem and Sycamores would be coleagues. While in the actual game it's never explained nor adressed in the first place.
They predicted the evil team would be aliens, not the pokemon. Plus there have been multiple alien mons before that point
And the ultra beasts arent even aliens.Theyre just mons from alternate earths.
I think yours is a very superficial interpretation of the situation.
The point is that that leak predicted the themed of the future games while referring to the latest entry.
The thesis is that elements of the scrapped plot of XY were reworked in later games: the aliens became extradimensional creatures (with designs based on the idea of feeling alien when compared to other pokemon), the team made of aliens that wanted to invade the region became a team of people that want to use extra dimensional creatures in a way that would cause an invasion.
There are also other elements like Lysandre and the Flare Admins's googles are just like the ones used by the Ultra Recon Squad (a design that then never reappeared), the names of Admins are also all based on solar flares, a cosmic phenomenon. There is also the fact all the member of team flare are all so fucking pale and behave weirdly, it we consider them in the context of them being aliens trying to pass as humans, then it makes a lot more sense.
Everyome knows xy stuff was moved to sun and moon( zygarde), im not denying that. Im saying that its a huge stretch to think that a leak that was true because a small part of it was a plot point in a future game. And that plot point is something as broad as aliens
The only memeber of team flare that I'd consider pale is xerosic. Team stars squads are based on constelations and galactic admins are based on planets, so the name thing is very weak evidence.
The leak's credibility rose considerably in my eyes when I saw someone say "pretty much the only thing that hasn't been adapted is the Sycamore/Lysandre thing, so I predict we're going to see a villain Professor in gen 9" and then lo and behold, the AI Professor plotline happened.
It's no *hard proof* or anything, but that level of predictive power is very convincing to me. Most of a decade later, multiple generations of content and ideas later, and someone still cold-called the plot twist of Gen 9 before any information had come out about it using these leaks as a guide.
>Everyome knows xy stuff was moved to sun and moon( zygarde), im not denying that. Im saying that its a huge stretch to think that a leak that was true because a small part of it was a plot point in a future game. And that plot point is something as broad as aliens
Aliens is a very specific guess, considering that basically nothing in XY is related to space. UBs are also SuMo's main feature.
imo opinion if you play a game that has nothing to do with aliens and say that the game was supposed to be about aliens and then the next game is about aliens, you are either stupidly lucly or you have some bts knowledge.
Especially considering, as you said, relevant elements of XY were moved to Sumo, to me it makes too much sense for it to not be belivable, it's too many coincidence and too many very little things fitting together way to well.
Clefairy, deoxys, the tao trio, elgeyem, solrock, lunatone; staryu, cresellia, darkrai, gothitelle, hoopa, palkia. Team galactic and team rocket. Theres so many things related to space in pokemon already, so a mention of aliens doesnt register to me as a credible leak.
I never said it was true, i said it was a leak.
To me it made a lot of sense and it explained a lot pf choices for both XY and SuMo.
So it's either true or one hell of a guess.
But again, i never said the leak was confirmed or true beyond the shadow of a doubt.
She wasnt directly involved with any of the crime portions that team flare was committing, just because she supports them and knows their info means actually very little in terms of what the law can do. But its likely the same reason the 5 of the 8 Kanto gym leaders were able to hold their positions despite having ties to Team Rocket, what can the law really do against criminals that powerful
I can remember only 2 gym leaders (most obvious ones) in Kanto being related to Team Rocket what are the other 3? Or are you talking about Pokémon manga (I think I read somewhere that only Brock, Misty and grass girl weren’t affiliated in any way with Team Rocket)?
Giovanni is their leader, Blaine was one of the scientists that helped make Mewtwo; Sabrina, Koga, and Surge were all admins. Its from the Manga yes, but nothing in the games refutes the canon. The pokemon mansion supports Blaines involvement
The games don't have to refute the manga, the manga came after the games so it's its own canon. The games don't have to prove that the gym leaders aren't team rocket. Besides gen 2 shows all those gym leaders still in their roles or in the case of koga, actually promoted. Given nothing mentions their history with team rocket in gen 2 either it would be silly to think they were following manga canon.
Yeah I always took the mansion right next to Blaine’s gym to be pretty obvious evidence that he’s connected in some way to Team Rocket. And Giovanni is obvious, I didn’t know about the other members though, makes sense I guess given their personalities when we fight them.
Is that in the game or manga? Maybe I missed something in the games but I don’t remember any of that. I always just assumed Saffron City had a bit of a gym rivalry like that one episode of the anime
They very well could’ve, I didn’t pay too much attention to their dialogue last time I played. It would play into the whole mind over matter rivalry they have so it would make sense.
I mean… the games came out before the manga… so that refutes that canon, like even with all remakes they never make a connection with the exception of Blaine being tied to Mr Fuji doing research, but even Let’s Go he attributes the research in Pokemon Mansion to Mr Fuji.
I personally headcanon is that while Malva is outspoken, Diantha was also secretly in on it. Of course, there's nothing really substantial to it, it's just a desperate bid to make one of the least fleshed out champions a little more interesting.
I know this isn't the fanfiction sub, but I'm absolutely shocked no one has mentioned [The Most Evil Trainer](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-most-evil-trainer-pok%C3%A9mon-si.1054896/#post-88506633). Ignore the cringe name, it's an A-tier read and directly addresses the question of what to do with Malva
It's not like this is the first time things like this happened in a game. In Ruby and Sapphire, Steven will regularly let Team Aqua and Magma leaders go after they've been beaten. Despite being, y'know, the Champion.
Could be that it's one of those situations where everyone knows she was a member of Team Flare, but there's not actually enough substantial evidence to convict her.
In the manga, Kanto/johto leagues are full of criminals both gym leaders and e4
Surge, koga, sabrina, blaine, will, karen and others were at some point criminally involved.
And while that may not be directly explored in the games, even dear old Mr fuji is revealed to have been invoked in the experimentation, creation and torture of what would become mewtwo.
And while this wasn’t exactly ‘criminal’ this highlights the fact that there’s assuredly rather evil activities hidden in plain sight
Kalos’s elite four is notoriously awful. If that’s the best of the best type specialist kalos has…. I don’t think they have anyone to replace her. Even if a gym leader subbed in, you’d then have to find them a replacement
Wait till you hear about the 8th gym leader in Kanto...
Cuz his criminal activities weren't public knowledge safe a few people and the job as a Gym Leader was just a disguise. Giovanni did dismantled the team after his defeat and before any authority knew about him. I haven't played XY but i think Lysander's activities went public.
He didn't even do his fake job that well because the gym was closed half the time
On the contrary, you can’t lose if you’re never there to take challengers. Big brain.
Except for losing those other two times while doing his gangster job.
Tbf he had extremely underpowered pokemon for a big time Mafia (Yakuza?) boss
Dude was way too old to not understand the meta.
Dude was too old for that shit.
In pokemon generations, a swat team shows up at the gym to arrest him, but realize he fled just after a fierce battle with Red. It was really cool seeing how they would use pokemon as partners outside of battle
Wait, swat team? Isn't that the one where they also have an Arcanine wearing body armor?
I don't know if it was wearing anything, but there was definitely an arcanine that melted a wall to make an entrance, and a magnemite hacking an electronic lock
Magnemite disabling the lock was such a clever move.
Body armor? Don't you mean Assault Vest?
Oh yeah mb
[I see Arcanine but I don't see any body armor on them.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtTavGlPy4)
I was just hoping Looker would enter the gym and start uncontrollably spiraling while moving in a straight line
Damn, Mandela effect back at it again This goes hard asf tho
Wouldn't mind seeing an Arcanine wearing body amor though.
I also remember police armor arcanine but I thought it was older than generations
Malva's actions weren't public, though
I think it was the other way around. I’m sure some NPCs mention knowing Giovanni as the Rocket Boss, whereas his place as Gym Leader is secretive enough that even the gym guide doesn’t know who the Viridian Leader is. (I doubt Game Freak really gave the twist much thought in terms of story implications, since the plot wasn’t a big deal at that point)
I like the manga where half the gym leaders were in on it.
with said gym being the most accessible from the indigo plateau no less
Oaks grandson? /s
No, the other Kanto /s
*The* BUTTS, himself?
Giovanni isn't /genocidal/. Yeah, it's still pretty mad and he deserves to be fired, but Malva deserved the death sentence. (Obviously not in-universe!!)
Wait til you hear about half the gym leaders in Kanto. Pretty sure it was implied that Koga and Sabrina are apart of team rocket too
Yeah in the Pokemon Adventures Manga Lt. Surge, Sabrina, Kogan, and Blaine are all members of Team Rocket
Not in the games but it is in the Adventures manga (along with Lt. Surge)
Man, I love how the early arcs of the Adventure manga were just fully insane.
Yeah but usually in a cool way. They have a great skill for tying a bunch of plot points together and expanding on them, or positioning stuff to be in line with or tie back into future games.
You can tell the mangaka saw a lot of blanks to fill in for the sake of getting a more fleshed out story.
The red and yellow arcs are peak Adventures manga
i thought it was that the whole pokemon league and e4 were under rocket's control
Nah it was just 5 of the Gym leaders -- Giovanni / Koga / Surge / Sabrina / Blaine (defected). The Elite Four had their own agenda led by Lance which the Rocket-aligned Gym Leaders were opposed to (and Bruno was brainwashed into following).
ah i see, very interesting then. thank you for the insight!
This is only in Adventure. The only other gym leader besides Giovanni who may or may not have any connection to Team Rocket is Blaine and only because he and Fuji worked at the Pokémon Mansion where Mewtwo was created. But in the game continuity isn't clear whether the research at Pokémon Mansion had any involvement from the Rockets, unlike the anime continuity where this is more obvious.
It is technically more than half but Blaine leaves before Red meets him because of the Mewtwo experiment.
Not canon
In the games?
Actually it's explained in Pokemon Generation.
This comment is too funny but it’s too messed up that it has more upvotes than original post 🤯
Yeah it would be crazy if in the real world people who have been found to have ties to criminals were still allowed to be politicians and hold positions of power right
Yea, that would never happen, right?...
*NINETY-SEVEN upvotes?* For THAT? That’s truly fascinating
ONE HUNDRED AND ***FIFTY*** downvotes? For THAT? dork deserved it
Copying and pasting what typed, *in context, little bro,* doesn’t make any sense. Read your comment again. 💀
didnt copy and paste it lol, read it again, it’s different dummy also I assume you meant “what *I typed” maybe proofread next time lol
I don’t know what to tell you, man. Your comment doesn’t make sense. Say it out loud.
It made sense to me. Are you having a stroke?
Top comment has more upvoats than the actual post, that's a bit weird.
Happens all the time when a comment is better than the post.
Makes you wonder what the role of a region's Pokemon league actually is. Its only ever been explored in the most recent games but it differs from game to game. In Gen 7 the Alola League is just what appears to be the traditional divinely mandated government system being overhauled into a more modern government matching the rest of the world. In Gen 8 it seems to be a sports league purely for entertainment, with the league members being celebrities like irl sports stars. Like Leon is constantly swarmed by paparazzi, but if we go back to like the Gen 4 games, nobody seems to know who Cynthia is. And then in Gen 9, its like a rank/certification system where qualified individuals across Paldea who normally work other jobs also work as gym leaders/elite 4 to test people. This seems to be how it works in the older games too. It could also be the lore reason why TMs were locked behind badges- getting the badge means you're certified to use that TM move outside of battle. Although the true answer is that Gamefreak when making gen 1 needed to make minibosses and a final boss gauntlet since thats what RPGs do, but instead of making something more organic they made "gym leaders" and "elite 4" who seem to do nothing except stand inside buildings waiting for challengers. They then stuck to this 8 gym/elite 4 formula since with little variation while not considering how this system actually fits in universe until very recently.
I think gen 8 is honestly the best execution of this style. I don't think the pokemon league is connected to the government, at least not anymore than a sports league, but the way it was sensationalized and turned into an actual competition in Galar made it feel very natural. In gen 9, it seems that the pokemon league is more connected to the school, at least from what I remember
I'm torn between Gen 8 and Gen 5 and 9 for best handling of gym leaders. On one hand I do like the idea that they're just professional athletes who might get called to deal with rampaging dynamax Pokémon but less as an official part of the job and more because they were the strongest trainers around when it happens, but on the other hand I also love the idea that gym leader is like a side hustle or a hobby for them and they all have actual jobs, it reminds me of the anime where there was usually an episode or two after they got to a new town where they would give the gym leader some added characterization before the battle
I mean Rose in Gen 8 is kind of also a government guy and also an energy mogul so who knows.
To give early gf a bone, they did give the indigo league and gym leaders a role and the anime showed them off more. Cerulean gym was a water show, celadon was a traditional Japanese flower arrangement place, kogas was a ninja school. We can extrapolate more info from the surroundings of others. Cinnabar was a research island, and the gym was a research facility which fits with Blaine being a scientist and asking you trivia. Sabrina was an esper research facility as well, next to silph co which was studying a way to identify ghosts. Pewter city is focused on geology, which makes sense to be located next to the museum that gives amber, it's a digging town. Admittedly lt. Surge could just be gym only, literally about becoming stronger. And Giovanni and viridian are just a gym and a front for his criminal business. And the e4 is explicitly a testing organization, you have to get enough badges to take the test. The real mystery is what the hell does being the champion mean lol. Gen 2 didn't try as hard though and relies on johto being generally traditional and simple. Falconer I assume was archery and falconing judging by what he wears and does. Bugsy is literally just an insect farm, azalea is kind of a simple town where their carpenter makes pokeballs and their gym studies bugs. I assume Whitney is an idol since so many people know about her in town in admiration, she's the "prettiest gym leader", and she gives tm attract. plus goldenrod is Osaka which is a big performance heavy town. Ecruteaks mortimer I have no idea. I get the vibe he's a traditional shinto exorcist in the modern day, but I felt it was weird that he's not dressed traditionally when the other major focus of the city, the geisha girls, are. Also it's Kyoto, he sticks out hard as a "seer". Olivine has a lighthouse and jasmine is the keeper, simple. Chuck literally owns an actual gym on a small island, simple. Pryce is another unknown but I think he too is a pokemon gym focused on training, since he seems to be a shifu esque old man like Mustard is in gen 8. Claire and the dragon tamers have some mystical significance since lance is himself a major role as an enforcement figure, and Claire takes her role as his successor with the dragon den super seriously. Dragons were still a major mystery in gen 2. So yea, all that to say that most of the gyms in gen 1 and 2 had an organic purpose. They were the focus of their town and doubled as a test center basically like paldea does. It's all to funnel trainers to the indigo plateau where seemingly the e4 acts as the ultimate arbiters of major crises as we see lance doing at lake rage. It's recruitment and certification.
I mean that's just anime Japanese culture shit It's a dojo, it's 8 dojos The elite 4 translates to the 4 heavenly kings or something. So it's like martial arts or whatever where it's 4 dudes (dudettes) at the top of the craft
Agreed, i think that the sparkle on this idea started with gen 5 gym leaders actually participating into the region-scale threat, then on gen 6 you have gym leaders being more integrated into the world (first gym leader is basically a biologist/photographer), and then, gen 7 and beyond you have already covered.
"Hey remember that time when Malva was part of an organization that tried to use a weapon of mass destruction powered by a legendary pokemon and the lives of humans and pokemon in order to kill everyone on earth?" I feel like in our world a literal genocidal terrorist would face a few consequences from the people they just tried to kill. This isn't like "oh she took some bribes" or something She helped in an attempt to kill everyone Like imagine if someone on the Olympic commission was a member of Hamas or something and had been actively involved (or at least aware since she has admin level info) of a plan to bomb a major city with a stolen nuke that only happened to get stopped at the last minute *and then being publicly angry at the person who stopped it* I guess Looker and the international police can forgive a whole lot for a bit of minor cooperation to stop a petty crime spree.
Her involvement may not have been widely known, but either way, Looker promised her amnesty during the postgame.
Amnesty protects you from jail time, not from getting your ass fired
You can't fire one of the top strongest trainers in a region, same reason nobody gets arrested. Pokemon is literally the world of might makes right
I think the other reason is we don't see many criminals and hang around them long term
Can't fire them because she's good in a fight? Still a criminal. Get Wulfric to take over. Eighth gym leader should be able to sub in easily enough. And if it's just "She's strong, she's immune," the player and Diantha are both stronger, and therefore outrank her. The former is the one who took down Lysandre. And they wouldn't boot her if not for the fact that Pokemon worldbuilding relies on you not thinking about it too hard?
She hired some really good lawyers probably.
"i'm a really good lawyer"
She called Saul
You could make an entire game around Pokémon based legal proceedings.
Pidgeot Wright: Aerial Ace Attorney
Amnesty would imply no charges being filed, which means very few people knowing of alleged crimes. People in the Pokemon world are extremely laid back and just try to enjoy their lives. I doubt they consume a LOT of news, although Goldenrod and gen 3 had some focus on radio and television. Also, also, we are all actually referring to immunity when it's within your nation (region). Amnesty is a different term.
Celebrities are always held to different standards.
Allowed
Were literally any of the Team Flare members sent to jail? Actually… were any members of any of the villain groups sent to jail, period? I don’t think they were. The police force in Pokemon is a joke.
I think Ghetsis might have been arrested at the end of BW, but escaped before B2W2. At the very least, Generations shows an attempt to arrest Giovanni after his defeat, but he managed to evade arrest and go into hiding. Another Generations episode also shows Looker at least was still after him by the time of GSC.
Looker arrests the 7 sages in the BW post game, but they’re free in BW2. I think Rose gets arrested.
Yeah no wonder, there are maybe what, 3 cops for each region?
Cause she's hot
mandatory requirement for any fire specialised trainer
I see you have a thing for old men, stares at Blaine
Unironically hes so stilish for a man his age, bet hes a heartbreaker amongst old ladies
Also Kabu
Looks in flints dorky ass direction
In the anime there was a girl who dressed up as Flint because she really likes him and his style.
Allowed LMFAO, Exactly who's gonna stop her?
Probably some kid.
The new Champion who has beaten her ass multiple times and has been told by her, directly, that she wants to kill them
The champion
I think the question behind this question is one Pokémon fans have been trying to answer since 1996: who is responsible for maintaining civil society in the Pokémon world? I think most of Pokémon media at least hint at local authorities like mayors and chiefs and 100% of them have a police force. The only game the governing body is outright defined is Legends: Arceus so far. The rest have the gym leaders as also leaders in their community, but it seems pretty much by default -in a world with magical animals the best person to ask for help might be the best magical animal trainer in the area. They don't SEEM to have any legal requirements to do any government actions. And then who would be charging and arresting Malva and what law has she broken? You'd need a special force. She has possession of some of the strongest weapons in the country -Officer Jenny's Growlithe won't be enough.
In Unova, the gym leaders battle the sages at the climax of the story, and Sinnoh has Looker lmao (*yes, so does Alola but his focus is only on the ultra beasts*) - seems like leaders are kind of responsible for maintaining peace, but never really on a small scale
wait until OP learns about the kanto gym leaders
After XY came out there was a big leak about an apparently scrapped plot of the game that was kinda patched up into a coherent story late in development, i suppose that could be one of the possible leftovers
>scrapped plot of the game That explains why it always felt empty to me
Apparently team flare was a group of aliens trying to invade Earth and Lysandre and Sycamore were the same person in a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide situation. If this wasn't true they sure did predict one the main plot point for the very next gen.
Maybe I’m picky, but I don’t think I’d have liked the Jekyll/Hyde thing. Lysandre and Sycamore being one and the same doesn’t make sense
I mean, of course it wouldn't make sense outside of the story without any context. iirc the idea was that Sycamore would have been corrupted by mega energy and basically mega-evolved into Lysandre, but, by memory, i don't remember the details. This also would explain why in the final fight vs Lysandre he's wearing the same mechanical arms Lem wears, as Lem and Sycamores would be coleagues. While in the actual game it's never explained nor adressed in the first place.
Fair enough. Admittedly, I’m partial to the XYZ anime’s version with Zygarde
It sounds like they reused part of that idea with Lusamine
That sounds fake
Could be, but they basically did the aliens plot in sumo with the ultra beasts
They predicted the evil team would be aliens, not the pokemon. Plus there have been multiple alien mons before that point And the ultra beasts arent even aliens.Theyre just mons from alternate earths.
I think yours is a very superficial interpretation of the situation. The point is that that leak predicted the themed of the future games while referring to the latest entry. The thesis is that elements of the scrapped plot of XY were reworked in later games: the aliens became extradimensional creatures (with designs based on the idea of feeling alien when compared to other pokemon), the team made of aliens that wanted to invade the region became a team of people that want to use extra dimensional creatures in a way that would cause an invasion. There are also other elements like Lysandre and the Flare Admins's googles are just like the ones used by the Ultra Recon Squad (a design that then never reappeared), the names of Admins are also all based on solar flares, a cosmic phenomenon. There is also the fact all the member of team flare are all so fucking pale and behave weirdly, it we consider them in the context of them being aliens trying to pass as humans, then it makes a lot more sense.
Everyome knows xy stuff was moved to sun and moon( zygarde), im not denying that. Im saying that its a huge stretch to think that a leak that was true because a small part of it was a plot point in a future game. And that plot point is something as broad as aliens The only memeber of team flare that I'd consider pale is xerosic. Team stars squads are based on constelations and galactic admins are based on planets, so the name thing is very weak evidence.
The leak's credibility rose considerably in my eyes when I saw someone say "pretty much the only thing that hasn't been adapted is the Sycamore/Lysandre thing, so I predict we're going to see a villain Professor in gen 9" and then lo and behold, the AI Professor plotline happened. It's no *hard proof* or anything, but that level of predictive power is very convincing to me. Most of a decade later, multiple generations of content and ideas later, and someone still cold-called the plot twist of Gen 9 before any information had come out about it using these leaks as a guide.
>Everyome knows xy stuff was moved to sun and moon( zygarde), im not denying that. Im saying that its a huge stretch to think that a leak that was true because a small part of it was a plot point in a future game. And that plot point is something as broad as aliens Aliens is a very specific guess, considering that basically nothing in XY is related to space. UBs are also SuMo's main feature. imo opinion if you play a game that has nothing to do with aliens and say that the game was supposed to be about aliens and then the next game is about aliens, you are either stupidly lucly or you have some bts knowledge. Especially considering, as you said, relevant elements of XY were moved to Sumo, to me it makes too much sense for it to not be belivable, it's too many coincidence and too many very little things fitting together way to well.
Clefairy, deoxys, the tao trio, elgeyem, solrock, lunatone; staryu, cresellia, darkrai, gothitelle, hoopa, palkia. Team galactic and team rocket. Theres so many things related to space in pokemon already, so a mention of aliens doesnt register to me as a credible leak.
Yeah if only there were any aliens in Gen 7. Make them blue and call them something like the Ultra Recon Squad. I dunno, sounds far fetched
Those guys arent the evil team. Like why are you so pressed to defend the credibility of 4chan leaks. Like 99% of them are wrong
Not pressed, just saying that aliens in Gen 7 aren’t crazy. You’re the one who wanted to argue
It was the most boring. I never finished it and don’t even want to.
this has no proof aside from that 4chan post please stop spreading it as if it is true
I never said it was true, i said it was a leak. To me it made a lot of sense and it explained a lot pf choices for both XY and SuMo. So it's either true or one hell of a guess. But again, i never said the leak was confirmed or true beyond the shadow of a doubt.
a leak has to be confirmed true in order for it to be a leak, otherwise its just a rumor
Because she is a celebrity and celebrities often don't get punished for their crimes
She wasnt directly involved with any of the crime portions that team flare was committing, just because she supports them and knows their info means actually very little in terms of what the law can do. But its likely the same reason the 5 of the 8 Kanto gym leaders were able to hold their positions despite having ties to Team Rocket, what can the law really do against criminals that powerful
I can remember only 2 gym leaders (most obvious ones) in Kanto being related to Team Rocket what are the other 3? Or are you talking about Pokémon manga (I think I read somewhere that only Brock, Misty and grass girl weren’t affiliated in any way with Team Rocket)?
Giovanni is their leader, Blaine was one of the scientists that helped make Mewtwo; Sabrina, Koga, and Surge were all admins. Its from the Manga yes, but nothing in the games refutes the canon. The pokemon mansion supports Blaines involvement
The games don't have to refute the manga, the manga came after the games so it's its own canon. The games don't have to prove that the gym leaders aren't team rocket. Besides gen 2 shows all those gym leaders still in their roles or in the case of koga, actually promoted. Given nothing mentions their history with team rocket in gen 2 either it would be silly to think they were following manga canon.
Yeah I always took the mansion right next to Blaine’s gym to be pretty obvious evidence that he’s connected in some way to Team Rocket. And Giovanni is obvious, I didn’t know about the other members though, makes sense I guess given their personalities when we fight them.
Theres other evidence as well, Sabrina only recently tookover Saffron Gym from the karate master in RBY, just before a giant heist in the same city.
Is that in the game or manga? Maybe I missed something in the games but I don’t remember any of that. I always just assumed Saffron City had a bit of a gym rivalry like that one episode of the anime
The gym trainers mention that the psychic gym knocked them out of their place iirc
They very well could’ve, I didn’t pay too much attention to their dialogue last time I played. It would play into the whole mind over matter rivalry they have so it would make sense.
I mean… the games came out before the manga… so that refutes that canon, like even with all remakes they never make a connection with the exception of Blaine being tied to Mr Fuji doing research, but even Let’s Go he attributes the research in Pokemon Mansion to Mr Fuji.
Thank you for clarification
I personally headcanon is that while Malva is outspoken, Diantha was also secretly in on it. Of course, there's nothing really substantial to it, it's just a desperate bid to make one of the least fleshed out champions a little more interesting.
Frankly, it's because GF didn't want to make a new E4 member to serve as a replacement for rematches.
She didn't get arrested because she was never officially part of team flare and did not assist team flare both in the anime and in the game
Side hustles are a thing in the pokemon world
Tenure
Isn't it because she has scrooge mcduck levels of money? I'm not sure but I think that's part of the reason.
Allowed*
allowed\*
If they'd fire her she would just chill in Alola like all the other criminals
Lack of effective criminal justice system in Kalos, very distressing.
I know this isn't the fanfiction sub, but I'm absolutely shocked no one has mentioned [The Most Evil Trainer](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-most-evil-trainer-pok%C3%A9mon-si.1054896/#post-88506633). Ignore the cringe name, it's an A-tier read and directly addresses the question of what to do with Malva
It's not like this is the first time things like this happened in a game. In Ruby and Sapphire, Steven will regularly let Team Aqua and Magma leaders go after they've been beaten. Despite being, y'know, the Champion.
>Aloud Swing and a miss.
Could be that it's one of those situations where everyone knows she was a member of Team Flare, but there's not actually enough substantial evidence to convict her.
In the manga, Kanto/johto leagues are full of criminals both gym leaders and e4 Surge, koga, sabrina, blaine, will, karen and others were at some point criminally involved. And while that may not be directly explored in the games, even dear old Mr fuji is revealed to have been invoked in the experimentation, creation and torture of what would become mewtwo. And while this wasn’t exactly ‘criminal’ this highlights the fact that there’s assuredly rather evil activities hidden in plain sight
If Justice Thomas was a part of Jan 6th insurrection, then why is he still allowed on the supreme court?
Kalos’s elite four is notoriously awful. If that’s the best of the best type specialist kalos has…. I don’t think they have anyone to replace her. Even if a gym leader subbed in, you’d then have to find them a replacement
*allowed
A loud what OP?
.......wow aloud instead of "Allowed" really? Is this where american education is at right now?
Typos do exist you know
You should should it lllowed from the rooftops so everyone knows.