#thing is he simultaneously has an insane amount of work ethic and none at all

[ultraericthered]

So, I came across this Pokemon post on here earlier today....

It's interesting how the quality of Pokemon's villains is in inverse proportion to the amount of dialogue they have.

Oh really now? 

Giovanni was a compelling villain because he was simple. He's a crime boss. He wants to treat Pokemon badly for financial gain. Simple, straightforward, and your conflict with him is primarily because he is directly in your way at different points of your journey.

Giovanni's Dialogue in Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow? 250 Words

Uh, Giovanni was not a very compelling character in the original Red/Blue/Yellow, and he gets a lot more dialogue in the remakes (FR/LG and Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee) as his character has gotten more fleshed out, so I’m not really sure this really holds up.

Maxie and Archie started the trend of ham-fisted philosophy and are almost charmingly stupid in how they don't understand the danger they're about to unleash until it's too late and you get to feel smug about it.

Maxie and Archie's dialogue in their respective games? About 800 words.

Again, Emerald and OR/AS are a thing to be factored in here as well.

Lusamine is about as "middle ground" as you can get, at least having a mostly personal story without any ham-fisted pretenses to idealism. She's just a controlling mother with empty nest syndrome, and that works. She'd be more interesting if the player was playing AS Lillie or Gladion, but whatever.

Lusamine's Dialogue in Sun/Moon? 1,300 words.

And what about Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon?

Lysandre is where shit gets obnoxious. He doesn't even know what he's trying to do. Nobody in Team Flare knows. Their motivations shift constantly almost trying to emulate Team Rocket and Team Magma simultaneously.

Lysandre's Dialogue in Pokemon X/Y? 1600 Words

I actually agree completely about Team Flare, but Lysandre knew exactly what he wanted to achieve - use the Ultimate Weapon to decrease the amount of human and Pokemon life in Kalos and possibly beyond so that all the “filthy parasites” who take, waste resources, and make the world uglier are erradicated and only the chosen true elite are spared so that they can set up the new order over an “eternally beautiful” world. It’s insane but pretty clear.

Ghetsis is arguably one of the worst, because most of what he says ends up being a complete and total lie and he's just a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain because Game Freak was afraid players might actually start questioning the ethics of Pokemon battling.

Ghetsis' Dialogue in Pokemon Black/White? 1800 Words

But...that was the whole point? That Ghetsis was a narcissistic megalomaniac and a charlatan who used a seemingly just cause such as examining the ethics of Pokemon battling and making corrections if need be in order to consolidate power for himself and disarm the masses so that none would stand in the way of him propping up a new regime over the world? Other members of Team Plasma weren’t lying when they claimed to be championing the freedom and well-being of Pokemon and standing against the whole Pokemon trainer system, but Ghetsis was knowingly using, decieving and exploiting those people and their beliefs through a ruse of believing in the same ideals as them. And that is scarily realistic, as so many instances of similar evil in modern politics has shown us.

Cyrus is the single most Black and White, evil for evil's sake villain in the entire series. He's the kind of character people imagine Giovanni to be because the mafia's pursuit of money and riches apparently isn't noble and obtuse enough to be considered a motivation. Cyrus waxes poetic about the world being terrible, but everything he says just flat out isn't true and not even in the misguided way like Maxie or Archie. He's just out of his mind being cruel for cruelty's sake.

Cyrus' Dialogue in Pokemon Platinum? 1900 Words

OK, this person has got ZERO reading comprehension if they came out with this blatantly false take. Cyrus waxes poetic about the world being in a state of decay and being made terrible because of human nature, or “incomplete spirit” of “the weak, faulty human heart” as he calls it. He seeks to destroy the existing world in order to do a total purge and reset button/system restore on all of reality, envisioning his new world to be a superior version of the old one he tore down in order to bring it into being - a world without spirit holding back any living being of living and functioning to their fullest potential. Yes, the man is out of his mind, but he thinks that by breaking the universe as is, he can fix it. And he is far from the cruelest of Pokemon villains, nor is any cruelty in his actions the point. In Platinum, US/UM, and especially in Pokemon Masters, Cyrus is a deep, properly motivated character far beyond what Giovanni in the original Gen 1 games was.

N is even worse because he waxes poetic about his ideals regarding ethics in Pokemon Battling, but it's an ideological dead end because the game never once challenges the player to consider what he's saying and contrives a reason for all his goals to fail, and his ideals are built off a faulty premise that Game Freak only entertains out of the illusion of a deeper story that ultimately reassures the player that they're already doing the right thing. Pulling the same con they did with Ghetsis but with even more dialogue and more interruptions and more wasting the player's time on a premise that you were never expected to take seriously. Game only wrote N's story because they were salty about PETA trolling for attention.

N's Dialogue in Pokemon Black and White? 2700 Words, oh my god somebody get a ballgag for this kid!

And here’s the final coup d’grace of bullshit. N dislikes Pokemon Battling and seeing his friends get hurt, but also understands that it’s in a Pokemon’s nature to want to fight, so he allows it when he feels it necessary or unavoidable. What he truly hates is the system of Pokemon training and how humans exploit Pokemon for research, sport, entertainment, menial labor, keeping them as pets or in Safari Zone zoos, etc. He hates Poke’ Balls, which is why he never uses them to catch any Pokemon himself - his team is different each time he’s battled. And the thing is? In B2W2, he has not changed this view. He and the remnants of Team Plasma who follow him now are still striving to make a world where Poke’ Balls and such things are not needed, and Pokemon can co-exist alongside humans without any exploitation or abuse from humans. What he’s learned is that he shouldn’t instinctively reject views and ideas about Pokemon that differ from his own, and should not try to force everyone else into accepting his views and ideals as the One And Only Truth. Gen 5 did have a deeper story that gave players plenty to think about, but this yahoo is among the whingy, pretentious lot who just didn’t get it.

Who does this person think they are, anyway? What do they call themsel...