Goolix

FireRed and LeafGreen are kind of weird to me sometimes. Like I can't think of another Pokemon game that begins by telling you the controls and explaining what Pokemon is like this. Like this screen comes before the Professor Oak. It feels like they were afraid that kids wouldn't understand?

There are other weird things about FRLG. The Trainer TV. The idea of playing an animation every time you use an HM (very cumbersome and I'm glad they removed that). Introduced walking up to text to read it (I think this showed up in a few other games? But they did not end up keeping it.) Adding wings to the map to show towns you can fly to. I really do wonder if they were thinking seriously about how to change the games' presentation & UI for future games, and this remake was considered a safe place to experiment with. The idea of TMs being CDs seems to come from FRLG after all and stayed for later games.

id be interested in a post going over the music related to team galactic (especially the weirdness of cyrus having two versions between the ost disc and in game dppt) and how that relates to the group/cyrus as characters. i intended to do something like that ages ago, but lost steam cause im just not that well versed in music to really articulate it

Thank you for such kind words!

I have a lot of thoughts on the music of Team Galactic and I want to do a more full fledged write-up at one point, but I want to sketch my current thoughts real quick before I forget.

Firstly, I think that themes tend to be impressionistic over all – a boss theme is not just about expressing something about that boss, but about what it feels like to be the one battling the boss. As such, I view it as something from the perspective of the player facing the boss more than from the boss's perspective.

Secondly, to figure out what is and isn't important, I'd need to listen to the whole soundtrack because there are common techniques across the songs. For example, the bass is prominent in Cyrus’s theme! ...but also the Lake Spirits’ theme. I don't think that this is some deep correspondence between the Lake Spirit battle and Cyrus battle; I think Masuda was just really into having a bass riff form the spine of battle themes this generation. Similarly, Timpani appears in the battle theme for wild Pokemon as well as Cyrus’s theme. And ‘turnarounds’ appear in both Giratina’s theme and Cyrus’s theme. I haven't seriously listened to the whole soundtrack so I'm definitely missing things because of that.

With that in mind, a quick note of things I find curious about Cyrus’s theme especially compared to Galactic and other battle themes:

Shares basically no material with the Galactic and Commander themes. The Commander theme is a souped up version of the Galactic theme, recycling most of the melodic material. Galactic Boss uses entirely new material.

Most noticeable to me - his theme is in compound time – every beat subdivides into triplets instead of two eighth notes! This is interesting because it results in a ‘bouncy’ feel by itself. (e.g. Pirates of the Caribbean theme.) However, the aggressive kick drum makes it ‘chug’ more than bounce. This is very interesting because the other battle themes from DPP are in straight time. In fact, most Pokemon battle themes are in straight time. (I think Plasma’s theme is either compound or swing time? Don't remember off the top of my head.)

Pokemon battle themes in general like to focus on the movement from a flattened second degree to the first degree. This can borrow from the phrygian scale. However, Cyrus’s theme actually just runs entirely through a phrygian scale (some variant of it – too lazy to check now) from top to bottom (0:45-0:57). The section has a vaguely Middle Eastern feel to it. (This is funny because 'Cyrus' is a Persian name, but this is almost certainly a coincidence. Neat though!)

Oh yeah, the synths really really emphasize the movement from 1 to b2 back to 1! You can hear it come in at 0:05 and it continues throughout the song. The b2 creates dissonance with other notes of the major scale, so it creates tension, but the movement from b2 down to 1 is a strong resolution, so you're not in a permanent state of unease.

The opening melodic bit (0:14-0:17) is homage to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which famously appears in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Overall emotion the song seems to be going for is gravitas, awe, overwhelm. The piece balances straightforward inoffensive melodic parts (the horn bits at 0:25-0:35) with more abrasive parts (the arpeggiating synth going wild while the kicks and melody play in unison at 1:33-1:42), parts that evoke mystery/passion (the strings running through the phrygian scale), and general gravitas (the timpani part; the opening ‘strings’).

As for why the theme changes on repeat (with some instruments jumping up an octave), this appears to have been an error. I read this from someone else so I need to look later to confirm, but there is apparently no actual instruction to have certain instruments hop up an octave in the sound instructions for the theme. It seems to be a bug resulting from a timbre change instruction that is never “released”. A similar bug appeared in a FRLG theme as well.

Meanwhile the Galactic theme imo balances offputtingness and relaxedness. Galactic grunt theme has this very melodic bit (0:13-0:34) after the intro over a bassline that doesn't really change, which feels chill. Compare with the arpeggiating synths later (0:55-1:00) where the underlying chords change more quickly afterwards, which provide intensity. My take is they're trying to balance the fact Galactic grunts are silly people, but they're still actually threatening.

Uses the James Bond line cliche (or something very similar; I am away from keyboard): 5-b6-6-b6 before looping around to the beginning (1:05-1:16).

Galactic theme (and the variant, the Commander theme) feels like it could be a space rock song? Which is perhaps why the BDSP adaptation fully goes down that direction with the organs and the percussion.

Commander theme isn't one I've listened to in depth because I like the grunt one better so I'd have to look at that in the future.

The teraleak revealed fascinating information about the early planning of Team Galactic, Cyrus, and the general direction of generation 4. The documents showed that some aspects of the games, such as an emphasis on matter and spirit, were settled quite early. Others, such as the goal of Team Galactic, appear to have undergone significant fluctuation. Let’s look at how Team Galactic and Cyrus changed based on the early document.

There are several central documents, all apparently written by Junichi Masuda in Autumn of 2005. For context, the DS Pokemon games were announced on October 7 2004, but by July 15 2005, they had been delayed. The games were released in Japan on September 28, 2006.

There are several documents in the folder DP/DP仕様/シナリオ (DP/DP Specifications/Scenario), but the most important are these three. プロットベース051020 (Plot Base) is a vision document summarizing the central themes of D/P, which are the balance between spirit and matter プロット関連設定 (Plot Settings) has short descriptions for Cyrus, Team Galactic, Dialga, Palkia, and Diamond and Pearl items. ギンガ団アカギ051027 (Team Galactic Cyrus) has an extended backstory for Cyrus as well as the current state of the plot. It has the title “Team Galactic “Cyrus” Central Plot Ver. 2.05.” There is a version 2.50 of the Cyrus document that is basically identical to the 2.05 version, with the only differences being minor grammar changes and the removal of a few words.

Spirit vs Matter

The first document we will look at was from October 27, 2005. This was written by Masuda, and the file name is プロットベース051020, or “Plot Base”. In a way, we can view this as a “Vision Document” covering the themes in D/P, the role of the legendaries, and the main actors. Let’s look at a few quotes from this document:

“Gods who create and protect the material world: Dialga, Palkia. Gods who create and protect the spiritual world: Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf. In the material world—primarily the scientific world—human thoughts are functions of the organ called the brain, and even the mind is produced by electrical signals. If one dies, one ceases to exist. Everything becomes nothing. Since death leads to nothingness anyway, it doesn’t matter what you do. Nothing changes. No matter what you do, it is all the same as the behavior of matter in the end. (Nihilism) However, in the spiritual world, there arise things that complement this: meaning in life, imagination, philosophy, religion. Humans are not merely material beings, but beings with consciousness, capable of experiencing various textures and qualities within that awareness. And it is only with both the material world and the spiritual world that humans can truly live. In Diamond and Pearl, when the balance collapses between Rei, Ai, and Hai—who protect Sinnoh’s spiritual world—and Ia and Ea—who protect the material world— abnormalities occur in the world. Originally, in the Pokémon world, the spiritual world is the stronger side of the balance. However, a material world that skillfully utilizes the spiritual world also exists. For example, the Poké Ball: when Pokémon are inside, they feel comfortable and at ease. If it were uncomfortable, it would just be a machine. That is to say, when the material world becomes dominant, emotion, knowledge, and will disappear. The material world expands. ※ The Pokémon world is positioned slightly closer to a spiritual civilization than the real world, which leans more toward materialism and science. This can be seen simply from how Pokémon are cherished, and from the fact that they possess feelings no different from humans. (1) First Stage Spiritual World ─────────────────────────── Material World  Religion ……… ◎ ……… ＋ ………………… Science         ↑ The Pokémon world (2) Second Stage As the gods who protect the spiritual world are released, the world begins to shift toward the material side. Spiritual World ─────────────────────────── Material World  Religion ……… ◎ >>>>> ＋ ● ………… Science         ↑ The Pokémon world                  ↑ Gradually, abnormalities begin to occur. (3) Third Stage Spiritual World ─────────────────────────── Material World  Religion ……… ◎ >>>>> ＋ >>>>>>>>> ● Science         ↑ The Pokémon world                  ↑ Eventually, the abnormalities progress to around this point.

Some interesting things can be seen from this document:

First is that the central tension of the game is explicitly stated to be the balance between “spirit” and “matter,” crudely narrated as “religion” vs “science.”

Second, Dialga and Palkia (Ia and Ea) are the gods of the material world and the lake spirits (Rei, Ai, Hai) are the gods of the spirit world. While we already knew that the lake spirits were composed of the human spirit, it is interesting to know that this division of labor was set in place so early.

Third, the Pokemon world is supposed to be more spirit-leaning than our world, and implied to be more balanced than ours.

Fourth, they explicitly state that focusing solely on mechanistic explanation of the world leads to nihilism, which regards the human experience as unimportant: “when a person dies, that is merely the death of cellular matter; there is no sadness or loneliness there.”

Exploitation

One interesting angle brought up in “Plot Base” and “Plot Settings” is that focusing too much on matter can justify exploitation. The “Base” document gives a story about how places with “rules and order” harvest Sharpedo respectfully: Sharpedo are killed individually, every part of them is eaten, and even their bones are handled carefully. However, “in the current barbaric world of advanced capitalism,” huge industrial ships are used to capture Sharpedo, cut the fins, and then throw them back into the ocean. (This is a reference to the real life practice of shark finning.) Although this method captures more sharks than necessary, only gets fins, and leaves the sharks to die finless, it lets you get more fins (the most profitable part of the shark). The document explicitly ties this to performance-based thinking: “what is wrong with the strong killing the weak?” The document seems to suggest that if there is no spirit, then the suffering of sharks or Sharpedo is just irrelevant biological noise.

Team Galactic is explicitly associated with this ideology: “Team Galactic holds the latter set of values. In other words, it is the same as elements of the real world that have gone too far, become excessive.” The “Plot Settings” document elaborates on this:

◎ Team Galactic A results-driven organization. Emotions are ignored. Because of this, they act forcibly. If something can be sold at a high price, they will take large quantities in a barbaric and meaningless way. They seize and plunder. They discard things easily. They treat Pokémon like garbage. There are also corporate-style rewards, and members are motivated by money and desire for power.

This feels different from the Galactic we got in the end. The Team Galactic we see is breathlessly preoccupied with the vague idea of a ‘new world’, which doesn’t show up here at all. Instead, focus is put on stealing: stealing large quantities of things, selling them at the highest price, abusing Pokemon, and overall desiring earthly goods like money and power. The final version of Team Galactic still steals Pokemon, but it’s not central to their project.

Now that we’ve got these bios, let’s return to the “Plot Base” document:

Team Galactic plants bombs at the entrance to the lake. They plan to blow up Lake Rei and capture large numbers of Pokémon such as Konkink and Tosakinto. By detonating it, they intend to drain all the water from the lake. In doing so, Team Galactic even wounds Uxie. Because of this, the balance begins to collapse. The protagonist ends up capturing Uxie. If Mesprit and Azelf are also injured, the three pillars of the spiritual world will be lost, and the material world will take form. That would be a world of science alone—a world where everything is regarded as matter, where even humans and even memory are treated as material. When a person dies, it is merely that cellular matter has ceased to function; there is no sadness, no loneliness there. And thus emerges a world where everything is governed by time (and space).

This is quite important - here the bombing at the lake is not to capture Azelf in order to chain Dialga/Palkia to create a new world, but just to capture large quantities of Pokemon. This feels like a plot Team Rocket would pull off, like an escalation of forcing Magikarp to evolve at the Lake of Rage.

Combined with the other vision document, the original idea for Team Galactic comes into play: Team Galactic was meant to be a critique of exploitative capitalism, which was presumably motivated by disenchantment and a lack of grounding in morality or religion. Because they lost connection with spirit, they become exploitative and cruel.

Cyrus

Cyrus also gets a short bio in “Plot Settings”:

Akagi (Cyrus) Currently 27 years old. He has a reasonable amount of muscle, and does not come across as someone who is obsessed with very self-enclosed scientific machinery. ※ Image reference: Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys

Already we are seeing a difference to the final Cyrus we see, whose body is so obscured that whether or not he has a ‘reasonable amount of muscle’ is unknown to us. Additionally, this Cyrus is described as not seeming like the kind of guy who would be into scientific machines, yet the final Cyrus absolutely looks like that type of guy. The reference to Brad Pitt’s character in 12 Monkeys, an erratic twitchy guy, suggests that the original vision for Cyrus was quite different - more openly chaotic:

That being said, there are still continuities. For one, it seems his being 27 was decided upon quite early and this remained in Platinum. The idea that he has a fixation on “scientific machines” in particular also clarifies something interesting about Cyrus. In the games, the Pastoria Grunt who delivers the bomb says that Cyrus designed it and he must be a “scientific mechanical genius.” This always sounded really weird to me, until I read this draft. It sounds like what they meant to say was that Cyrus was a genius at scientific machines. In other words, not just run of the mill tinkering, but machines that would be suitable for a scientific enterprise.

Let’s take a look then at the final document, “Team Galactic Cyrus”, which has a v2.05 and 2.50 revision. These are quite long and feature a very different sequence of events during the actual D/P story, but the most relevant part is the backstory. It’s quite fleshed out, reading like a clinical case study.

We get a glimpse into his home life: he was born into a wealthy family, but he was not emotionally taken care of. His parents fought often with each other. They expected perfection from him, a goal he could not reach but would come to internalize and judge others by. He could not predict when his parents would scold him, and he hated that this instability seemed to be permanent. Because he could not connect with his parents, he found refuge in machines (curiously they also specify scientific machines here, even as a kid!) and became emotionally disconnected. He was exceptionally intelligent but struggled to make friends, and an unspecified humiliating experience at age 10 made him so angry he decided to route all his energy into ambition and domination. He founded the performance-focused Team galactic as a teenager - the name is a reference to the only time his parents smiled at him, which is when he said he wanted to be an astronaut. His goal is to become a ruler of machines, and make the world revolve around him. At the game’s climax, he takes the power of Dialga/Palkia and becomes powerful, but seeing the bonds between the player and the rival causes him to drop his emotionless mask.

We’ll discuss the differences more later, but I also want to focus on the similarities. The idea of Galactic as a corporation whose ladder you can climb does survive in the final game, with many members talking about raises and promotions. The Pokemon stealing angle is kept. And there is an incident where a Pokemon dies due to Team Galactic, though it’s not clear if this was on purpose or as an unintended consequence of trying to steal someone’s Pokemon. Cyrus’s volatile home life is not touched on in D/P but is mentioned in Platinum, and an astute reader can pick up on the disturbances from his repeated emphasis on “strife” and “conflict”.

This document also provides clues about other Team Galactic artifacts, those being alternate outfits found for them in other folders. For Cyrus, there is an alternate outfit of him in a suit and him in a suit with an open collar and a choker (labeled, “A little ‘bad boy’”). For the commanders, there are versions of their outfits that have bare arms and exposed legs. Final Cyrus looks like he’s read 20 books on philosophy and cosmology; draft Cyrus looks like he’d sell you ketamine in the bathroom of a sleazy club.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any dates attached to these alternate images (the Cyrus ones are just dated 2014) nor do we have any explanation of what they were meant for. The Cyrus ones are curiously drawn ON TOP of his final design (you can see the pant leg peeking through), which means that his final design was finalized and then these two other concepts were explored. Perhaps the idea of Cyrus as an amoral businessman, if rejected for the games, ended up being used in the anime. The light blue dress shirt with a dark blue tie and narrow collar design does get reused in the anime. We don’t see sleazy “bad boy” Cyrus in the anime, though, nor do we see sexy commanders.

What Changed?

Now that we’ve taken a look at the documents, let’s tally what’s changed and what hasn’t. As we’ve seen, a substantial amount has stayed the same. Draft Cyrus: is emotionally distant, hides his true intentions from Team Galactic, identifies with matter over spirit, has an affinity for scientific machinery and the stars, has a troubled home life where his parents expected him to be perfect wants to use Dialga/Palkia to achieve his dream has Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter as commanders after being defeated, claims he won’t give up after defeat, asks you “what is the ultimate”

At the same time, the changes are highly revealing.

The first most noticeable change, which we alluded to earlier, was that Team Galactic stopped being a simple allegory for capitalism unchained. There are aspects of corporate life at Team Galactic, but the final version also has a strong cultish undertone. The members are enthralled by Cyrus’s vision of a new world, vague and underspecified as it is: “Our objectives are incredible! Too incredible for me to understand! I’ll fight blindly to defend them, and your intrusion won’t be forgiven!” A Team Galactic scientist says “Our mission is to implement our operations without question. It is all for the new world order that our boss will lead! […] I’m willing to do anything to get ahead in Team Galactic. One day you’ll see what we are all about. It’s wonder, compassion, splendor, humor, power, awe, and tragedy!” Cyrus himself presents Team Galactic’s aims in humanitarian language in Platinum:

“This world of ours is a crude one. In a word, it is incomplete. It has been, and always will be, a struggle to survive in this world. We humans and Pokémon are likewise incomplete. Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim… It is ugly. I hate the incompleteness. That we are all incomplete, I hate it with my entire body and being. The world should be complete. The world must change.”

This leads into another major change - Cyrus’s ultimate goal. None of the draft documents mention the idea of eliminating spirit or creating a new world. Draft Cyrus seems to think that spirit is something unimportant or not even real. Final Cyrus is obsessed with removing it from the world. Both have a grandiose fantasy of becoming gods, but Draft Cyrus seems to want power to make the world revolve around him, the ultimate revenge for someone ignored and unappreciated by his parents. Final Cyrus is in a metaphysical revolt against the very conditions of existence itself.

Another change is Cyrus’s personality and general conception. We have no way of knowing whether Final Cyrus has “a reasonable amount of muscle” (unless Masters Ex ends up taking an unusual direction), but I certainly would not describe him as being anything like Brad Pitt’s character in 12 Monkeys. You can barely imagine Final Cyrus showing teeth in a smile, let alone grinning maniacally. Draft Cyrus is also primarily characterized as being angry. Final Cyrus is icier and more detached, with his moments of anger coming as breaks in composure.

The idea that Team Galactic is “meritocratic” doesn’t appear explicitly in the final version, but there are remnants. Messing up causes you to get demoted and lose your Pokemon. After defeat, one grunt laments: “We couldn’t stop you... We’ll be discarded as useless... Our boss is ruthless that way…” It seems that the internal work culture, nap rooms aside, is unforgiving. Much like the ‘scientific machine’ bit, this is a detail that has become downplayed in the final version but survives as a remnant.

Despite this, the documents don’t seem totally irrelevant to the final story. Cyrus does represent an overidentification with matter over spirit. Team Galactic does want to subjugate the Lake Spirits and use the power of the matter-identified creation duo. Draft Cyrus’s background in particular seems like it could apply to final Cyrus easily with minor modifications. And ultimately, Cyrus remains confused and tormented by the concept of bonds between people, especially in Platinum. This leads to my next question:

Why did they change this version of Cyrus and Galactic?

To me, the obvious answer is that they were too close to what had been done with Team Rocket. This early version of Team Galactic feels like Team Rocket with a coat of nihilistic paint on it. Blowing up a lake to steal Pokemon feels like a stone’s skip from using radio waves to force Magikarp to evolve at the Lake of Rage. It also made the space imagery feel kind of pointless. In the docs, the reason it’s called Team Galactic is because boy Cyrus loved the stars, felt comforted by the vastness of space, and his parents only ever smiled at him when he expressed the wish to become an astronaut. Cyrus as a yakuza-CEO princeling who is secretly obsessed with scientific machinery would certainly be a fascinating concept, but it feels derivative of what was done before - Giovanni but with space dragons.

The final version of Cyrus, you like him or not, is distinct. He wants to destroy the human spirit because it’s imperfect. Team Galactic exists not to make money, but to secretly further his own goals. He even looks down on the members of Team Galactic as buffoons. There is an idealistic tone to him - he speaks of justice, eliminating strife and conflict, of hating this imperfect world with his entire being. He does still want to be the god, but he thinks he’s doing this to eliminate suffering. Draft Cyrus doesn’t think suffering matters. Final Cyrus is clearly deeply affected by it. Both claim to be emotionless, but that emotionlessness is directed to different goals: sheer power on the one hand, and cosmic recreation on the other.

In my own opinion, this final revision was worth it. It jettisons the facile “not having religion and liking science too much makes you bad” angle in favor of a question that forces one to defend the human spirit even when it’s imperfect. The consequence of disenchanted alienation leading to desiring a world freed from the torment of being a feeling creature is much more interesting than disenchanted alienation leading to capitalism (which is just 20th century philosophy writ large :P). It distinguishes Cyrus from previous Pokemon antagonists in seeking something beyond worldly changes. The philosophical tone and cosmic scope serve to deepen his tragedy - the loftier his goal becomes, the more it hurts when you realize that this is a corrective for his childhood shame. The particularity of his vision makes him stand out among Pokemon villains and ties in neatly with his biography. His history, goals, methods to execute said goals, temperament, and aesthetic all mesh organically in the final version.

The changes to Team Galactic also work to distinguish them from Team Rocket. The cluelessness of the grunts is played up in the final draft. Some grunts really are just in it for money and material gains (I mean, Charon is a commander and he thinks it’s a good money making opportunity). Some grunts think that they’re somehow making the world a better place. Some grunts seem completely confused but devoted to Cyrus’s aura. Making him a cult leader/CEO vs a gangster/CEO was an inspired move. And of course, their completely sealed up outfits that barely reveal any skin (Jupiter’s slice of thigh notwithstanding) truly sets them apart from everyone else and rhymes with the idea of a post-spirit society.

Editorialized from my commentary on Cyrus quotes in Japanese.

In Japanese, there are multiple different pronouns used for first and second person. These pronouns have different nuances and associations. Cyrus's use of these pronouns is especially revealing for how he views you, the player.

For first person pronoun, he basically only ever uses 'watashi', which is a formal first person pronoun. He's basically always distancing himself from the people around him, never using a more familiar pronoun.

If you think he's the author of the Old Notebook, then he also uses 'boku', which is a common first-person pronoun for boys to use.

Now the fun bit is when he addresses you. In Diamond/Pearl and Platinum, the first time he addresses you is in Mt. Coronet. The opener here is iconic among Japanese fans:

キミは せかいの はじまりを しっているか "Do you know how the world began?"

He uses the pronoun 'kimi' here, which is respectful though implying he is your superior.

In Diamond and Pearl, he downgrades you from 'kimi' to 'omae' at Spear Pillar. 'omae' is a little familiar or condescending.

それに なぜ？ シンジ湖の ポケモン エムリットが おまえの そばに 現れる！？ "And why—? The Pokémon of Lake Verity, Mesprit, appears at your side!?"

In Platinum, you get downgraded from 'kimi' to 'omae' in the Distortion World when he asks if you know about genes.

ところで おまえ……いでんしに ついて しっているか？ By the way, you... do you know about genes?

Once you defeat him in the Distortion World, he downgrades you even further to 'kisama', a very rude and disrespectful form of address.

……きさまに あの ポケモンを たおしたり つかまえたりなぞ できるものか わたしが かんがえるに！ "…You— There’s no way you could defeat or capture that Pokémon. In my estimation, this strange world is that shadow Pokémon itself!"

He must be absolutely seething by this point.

One of my favorite things about Cyrus across his representations is that when he's not in full founder/CEO/cult leader mode, his social technique is so bizarre.

When he first talks to you directly in Mt. Coronet, he just appears down the steps and begins monologuing to you about how the world was created. He then ups the ante by telling you that he finds the state of affairs "deplorable" and then walks past you with no further explanation.

According to one theory, Mt. Coronet is where the Sinnoh region began. In a newly created world... A world where only time flowed and space expanded... There should have been no strife. But what became of the world? Because the human spirit is weak and incomplete, strife has spread... This world is being ruined by it... I find this state of affairs deplorable...

In Japanese, it's a little better because he goes "Do you know how the world began? According to one theory..." Which is more of a conversation starter, but still a hell of a way to get some random kid's attention.

In Platinum, at Celestic Town, he also singles you out:

"...I know you, Trainer. We've met at Mt. Coronet. Why would you want to protect this incomplete world?

What do you mean "I know you"? You singled me out in a creepy mountain, dumped your existentialist monologue on me, and left as suddenly as you arrived? Does he think we're buddies now because he infodumped at us and we didn't explicitly say you disagreed with him?

In the Distortion World, he also continues his habit of just walking up to you to talk about whatever he feels like talking that day.

"...The shadowy Pokémon isn't here. It abandoned me here, then disappeared somewhere farther down... Was it content to merely interfere with my plan...? Incidentally, do you understand the concept of genes?"

That topic switch just comes with absolutely no warning. He could have said that he knows how this world functions and he's going to explain it to us with a metaphor, but no, just suddenly going from mumbling to himself about Giratina's plans to evaluating our knowledge of genes.

You may think these are gameplay abstractions to have Cyrus explain what he's thinking about to you, and you'd be right! But they're certainly written in a way to make him seem as intense as possible!

We can even see that this escalation of subject matters continues in Masters, where, after talking with Sophocles for hours, he decides that the appropriate way to continue a conversation with a nerdy kid you just met is to ask if he too thinks the human heart is irredeemable:

Sophocles: Gosh...I had no idea Rotom could do that! That was really informative. Thank you! Cyrus: No thanks necessary. You gave me information as well. Sophocles: Hehe. I still want to thank you. Now I can become even better friends with Rotom. [pause, Sophocles makes a confused ? expression] Cyrus: What do you think of this world? Sophocles: Huh?

Like dude, what is this? You went from free-flowing nerd talk to baring your soul.

Cyrus: This world of ours is a crude one. In a word, it is incomplete. It has been, and always will be, a struggle to survive in this world. We humans and Pokémon are likewise incomplete. Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim... It is ugly. I hate the incompleteness. [minor zoom] That we are all incomplete, I hate it with my entire body and being. The world should be complete. The world must change. Sophocles: Mister? Cyrus: The reason for this is the human spirit. As it is vague and incomplete, so too is the world.　What about you?　Have you never felt pain or sadness due to your incomplete spirit?

This would be an intense and intimate turn for an adult conversation with someone you've known for a while, let alone with someone you met a few hours ago. But he doesn't seem to think so. He doesn't even seem to realize how incredibly vulnerable it is to just lay out your core issue with the world like this. I suppose it's all just information exchange to him.

And in any case, he seemed to have thought that Sophocles was a candidate for being someone who could possibly understand. If Sophocles was like Cyrus, then Sophocles should be comfortable with such a conversation and reach the same conclusion Cyrus did as a kid. From his perspective, he's just filtering for compatibility immediately. And he says as much:

Sophocles: U-um, why did you say all that stuff to me? [zoom to Cyrus’s back] Cyrus: Because you remind me of a child I know very well. But apparently I was mistaken.

Here in the Distortion World, Cynthia says:

Call it a Trainer's intuition, but we're getting close.

But in Japanese, she says:

シロナ『おんなの　カンだけど いよいよって　かんじね さあ　すすみましょう！

Translated:

It's just a woman's intuition, but it feels like it's finally happening. Now, let's go forward!

The "woman's intuition" was changed to "Trainer's intuition" in English.

A similar "woman's intuition" line appears in Masters, but instead of "Trainer's intuition", it just became intuition:

Cynthia: My intuition is never wrong about this sort of thing.

You can find all the Cyrus quotes per game, including Masters, at my site!

Many fans seem confused about whether Cyrus wants to kill everyone or whether he wants to keep people but remove their spirit. Though Cyrus goes to great lengths to make his dream world a reality, the game is not always clear on what his dream world will actually consist of. In this, we will go through the evidence game per game to see what it means about what he wants.

Diamond/Pearl

This one has what seems to be the strongest interpretation for the “destroy everything” camp:

“This will bring about the destruction of all things. With everything gone, there will be no fighting and no strife.”

“This world cannot be molded into the ultimate world I seek! It's far easier to create an entirely new world than to change this one! A new world in which I am the ruler of all things! I shall become a deity!"”

There is no reference to continuity of experience, and instead the focus is placed on him becoming a deity and destroying everything. “Ruler of all things” might imply that people could still exist, but it is not clear.

Platinum

He still wants to make a new world:

Cyrus at Celestic Town: "I am seeking the power to create the ideal world."

The team Galactic speech is quite important:

“The world should be complete. The world must change. Then, who will change it? Me, Cyrus. And Team Galactic. Yes, all of you. Together we pored over myths and exposed their secrets. Together we captured legendary Pokémon. And now, Team Galactic has obtained the energy to change the world! The power of dreams is within our grasp! Understand it, fellow members! My long-held dreamworld is on the verge of becoming reality.”

Because he says his speech was a “big lie” and that he seeks a new world solely for himself, a lot of people assume that this speech seems to be entirely fake. But let’s read more closely:

“You heard my speech, I take it. Snicker... A big lie, of course. It's true, insofar as my intention is to create a new world. But that world isn't for the likes of Team Galactic. I seek an entirely new world solely for myself. If not, it could never be the complete and perfect world. You've seen my minions of Team Galactic. You yourself must know that they are uniformly useless and incomplete."

The whole "lie" is that the world isn’t for the likes of Team Galactic. But go back and read through his speech. Notice what he says:

"The world must change. Then, who will change it? Me, Cyrus.”

This is certainly true. He then adds the fluffy, heartwarming bits like “And Team Galactic. Yes, all of you.” But he also makes it clear:

“My long-held dreamworld is on the verge of becoming reality!”

Not everyone’s - his. He doesn’t actually directly lie in this speech. He says Team Galactic played a part in making his new world come true, which is objectively true, but he never says that the world is for them. This is implied by the language that adds together the ‘us’ element, and the final bit “Let there be glory for Team Galactic!”, but he’s actually pretty clear that it’s his vision that’s being made true.

People also hark on the "I seek an entirely new world solely for myself." line as proof that he plans to be the only person left in his new world. I don't think this is the best interpretation of this line. I think a better interpretation would be "I am doing all of this (trying to make a new world) because it's what I want to do, not for Team Galactic's sake." When he says he says that the world isn’t for the likes of Team Galactic, I think this is worth contrasting with what grunts say throughout the game, which is that the boss is going to make a special world where Team Galactic are the winners.

Now, why do they think that he's going to make a world where Team Galactic rule? Well, he certainly hasn't told anyone the full version of his goal, not even his own commanders. He mostly seems to allude to the idea that the world is broken and he's going to fix it by making a new one, which he will have control over. Everyone else fills in what they want to get from that. Charon thinks he's going to become filthy rich. Saturn thinks "Everything is for everyone, and for the good of Team Galactic," so he seems to have an altruistic vision. Some of the grunts think he's going to make a world where they get to rule. And most of the grunts seem to have no idea what he's talking about but just like his vibe. Cyrus doesn't have to lie directly because he knows everyone will fill in what they want to hear from his speech. This is why he snickers with delight.

Of course, he's not doing any of that. His project is to fulfill his own personal goal, because he seeks a “complete and perfect” world. And what is his complete and perfect world? What he’s been telling us throughout the entire game - a world without spirit. This does not mean that he will literally be the only person in the world. It means that he will be the one deciding the direction of the world. There may or may not be people involved, but he is the CEO of this new world, and his KPI is “amount of spirit: 0%.”

Here we have some more resetting dialogue from him:

“With the power I wield, I will create an entirely new world! The incomplete and ugly world we have now can disappear. I am resetting everything to zero. Nothing can remain. It is all for making the ultimate world. A world of complete perfection. Nothing so vague and incomplete as spirit can remain”

This seems to mirror D/P. However, note this next part:

“Now, [player]. You've constantly interfered with my plans, but you will be forgiven. After all, there will remain no spirit for all time when I am done. All spirit will disappear. It will be ripped away... From you! From your Pokémon! From those precious to you...!”

He doesn’t say that our lives will be forfeit. He is excited because none of us will have spirit. The player, their Pokémon and the player’s loved ones will all have spirit “ripped away” from them. Does this suggest that he’s killing them? I don’t think so. I think he thinks he’s purifying everything by removing spirit.

Another key line that supports this is his final statement:

“I will break the secrets of the world. With that knowledge, I will create my own complete and perfect world. One day, you will awaken to a world of my creation. A world without spirit.”

You cannot awaken to his creation if you do not exist. This is the strongest evidence that he does not want to destroy everyone. Instead, it sounds like he’s doing some kind of database migration. If he’s a deity, he’ll presumably have unlimited power. He can take all the people, put them in some kind of stasis, and them remake the world to his liking. Perhaps he’ll get rid of all the stuff that invokes memory and history, like he planned to do at Celestic Town. Once the world is to his liking, he can then de-spirit-ify everyone and put them back. He’ll presumably de-spirit-ify himself as well, unless he secretly plans to be the only person left with spirit.  In this way, he has destroyed and reset this world, but he has not killed everyone.

However, that’s just his plan A. If that fails, he seems willing to just destroy everything:

“This bizarre world is none other than that Pokémon itself! Capturing it or defeating it will make this world disappear! Very well! Do what you will! Rather than repairing the world, you're going to destroy it for me! Do it. You inherit my legacy.”

It’s not really clear what he thinks will happen if Giratina is defeated? His own plan seems to be to defeat Giratina so that both our world and the Distortion World are forced into an unstable state, which will allow him to finish what he was doing at Spear Pillar. However, it could be that he would just be okay with both worlds collapsing and killing everyone. It’s not especially clear.

In either case, I do think that his desired world, his “dream” world, as he puts it, is one where there are people, but none of them have spirit. There’s a reason that he rejects living alone, and that is that the mere presence of spirit seems to him to be unjust. His project is always presented as being something that will end “conflict” and “strife.” Ending conflict and strife by killing everyone is meaningless, and unlike, say, Lysandre, Cyrus has never actually shown any inclination to kill human beings.

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon

In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, a version of Cyrus that had won or was about to win is transported to Alola to participate in Giovanni’s Rainbow Rocket scheme. The first thing he asks the player is this:

"Who are you...? It seems you are not a member of Team RR."

"...My name is Cyrus. I would like to ask you one question. Is this world the new world?"

Regardless of answer: "I can sense in you the strong desire to protect... something. You have a powerful spirit. ...That must mean this isn't the world I desired. I used the power of the Pokémon that control time and space to create a perfect world, where the human spirit does not exist. That was when a great shadow appeared and engulfed me... And brought me to this world.

"Is that a Pokédex...? May I have a look?"

This is interesting because it suggests that the presence of people does not disqualify this from being his new world. In other words, he expects that there will still be people in his new world, just that they won’t have any spirit in them. I’m not sure how he squares this with the fact that he knows about Rainbow Rocket unless he had no contact with them beforehand? Or Team RR came off as “spiritless” to him?

In any case, this Cyrus seems to think there will be a place for humans in his new world.

Masters (Ex)

He is clear that he expects to delete the old world and create a new one:

“I will destroy this world and create a new one in its place!”

However, he also uses this line from Platinum:

“One day, you will awaken to a world of my creation. A world without spirit.”

In the Darkrai arc, he says:

“Human spirit is the cause of our suffering, worries, and mistakes! I must fix this twisted world! This world must be rid of incomplete spirit—and become one where feelings such as joy, anger, and despair no longer exist! All human spirit must be erased!”

And Cynthia says to the commanders: 

“If you have any feelings—the human spirit that Cyrus is talking about—within you... then I think it might be worth reconsidering a few things”

She doesn’t say “if you value your lives,” but “if you have any feelings,” making it clear that the expected end result is that everyone will continue existing in some manner or other, but without any emotionality.

The fact that he wants Darkrai to infect everyone also shows that group participation in his dream world is critical. He is not content to be alone in a world without spirit - he seems to consider it a matter of justice that everyone be subject to his vision of a spiritless world.

Finally, one of his miscellaneous quotes says it about as cleanly as possible:

“Unlike humans—who are unreliable—machines act according to logic, and their actions always bring about the same results. Machines aren't influenced by the uncertainties of spirit or emotions. Don't you think that's wonderful? The world is filled with ugly things, but I think machines alone are beautiful. If this world was made up only of machines... I think it would be close to the complete world that I envision.”

“If this world was made up only of machines…” What he’s trying to do is to make a world where everyone is basically a sort of machine. He doesn’t want to live in a world of nothing where he’s the only person. He wants to rule over a world of machine-people.

Note that other interpretations vary on this. In the anime, Cyrus seems willing to live alone in the world that Dialga and Palkia open up for him. In Generations, he seems content to live by himself in the Distortion World. Both of these go directly against his characterization in Platinum, where he outright rejects living alone, and his characterization in Masters, where he always wants other people to participate in his plans. This is not to say that those characterizations are wrong - Cyrus is just a character and other writes are free to interpret him as they like. It is more that they differ on that serious detail.

As a final aside, the draft material explicitly states:

“At the same time, his anger led him to start using people to achieve his goals, fueling his desire for power to become a ruler of machines.”

In other words, at least one draft version of Cyrus wanted to rule over *something*, as opposed to absolutely nothing.

Multiple references are made to 'the Japanese' - you can find all the material in Japanese + machine translation at my site!

Between Diamond/Pearl and Platinum, a substantial amount of Cyrus-related content was added. The word count of his dialogue doubled between the games, and the addition of Looker, Charon, and a verbal showdown with Cynthia in the Distortion World provided even more new angles to inspect him from. These changes didn’t just fluff his character, but fleshed out a nearly archetypal figure into something more resembling a (warped) human being. Most interestingly, Platinum’s Cyrus seems to challenge the vision that we got from Diamond and Pearl’s Cyrus.

Despite the substantial change in content, many fans seem to remember Cyrus as a relatively flat character with little depth, an awkward transitional character between the campy Archie/Maxie and the beloved N/Ghetsis. The dominant fandom interpretation remains the anime stereotype of the “cold, logical mastermind.” The additional biographical information is often summarized as “he had a difficult upbringing”.

I want to take a look at these phenomena. What did Platinum do to his character? And why have these changes only variably been absorbed into the fandom at large?

The Seams in the Persona

Taken at face value, Cyrus is an edgy emotionless JRPG villain who wants to destroy spirit because it’s "logical." Why do we believe this? Because it’s what he tells us. In Diamond/Pearl (English), he tells us that “pity and compassion” are “illogical and irrational.” He claims that he “abandoned all emotions as useless sentimentality.” His affect avoids typical emotional markers - he does not gush, cry, or gloat. Even during the first battle with you, he shows marked detachment from the outcome: “I see... I may lose if this pace continues…”

Of course, even here, his claim that he “abandoned” emotion is not quite true. He’s clearly upset and angry once the lake spirits break the chain on Dialga/Palkia, he's excited when summoning Dialga/Palkia, and he expresses profound contempt when you come to rescue the lake spirits. However, because these pass quite quickly, we don’t seem to remember these as “emotional” moments. Contempt is especially easy to pass off as an intellectual judgment when it’s really a mix of disgust and anger. This game’s Cyrus is thus easy to take at his word, that he is somehow operating without emotion.

Platinum challenges this notion from the moment you meet him. Your first meeting with him is moved to Lake Verity, at the very beginning of the game. In Japanese, he refers to Mesprit as a “so-called” legendary Pokemon - quite a petty and pointless thing for someone allegedly operating solely on utility functions. Even without the Japanese evidence, he shows up alone to Lake Verity, the one containing the spirit associated with emotion, at least partially to talk trash to it. In the Japanese game, you go from ‘kimi’ (polite 2nd person pronoun) to ‘omae’ (condescending 2nd person pronoun) to, in the Distortion World, ‘kisama’ (highly disrespectful 2nd person pronoun), showing that he lowers you in esteem the more you interfere with his plans. These are not the actions of an emotionless man.

The added Team Galactic HQ speech is interesting. He admits to lying about the goal of the speech, so its veracity is suspect, but I don’t think he’s lying when he says “Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim... It is ugly. I hate the incompleteness. That we are all incomplete, I hate it with my entire body and being.” This is his entire raison d’etre, the motivating factor behind his entire operation. It rhymes with his monologue at Mt. Coronet, where he finds "this state of affairs deplorable." All of his actions and words suggest that he doesn’t want to delete spirit out of some cool-headed evaluation of the costs and benefits, but because he experiences existence of spirit as wrong on a very deep level. 

The most important change across versions is the Distortion World. Once you defeat him, his defeat speech is much more emotionally charged: “I won't accept this! This can't be! Not after all the sacrifices we've made to get this far! What of my new world?! Of my new galaxy?! Was this all a dream to be swept away by your reality?!” The final escalation comes when you defeat Giratina. Every single opportunity to make his dream a reality has been snatched from him. Instead of calmly evaluating the situation like he does during the battle at the Galactic HQ, he asks, incredulous, “What compels you to protect the two worlds? Is spirit, a vague and incomplete thing, so important to you?!" He’s clearly dysregulated at this point because when Cynthia answers him, he doesn’t respond to her points, but just tells her to sh and provides a highly loaded and revealing speech:

“Silence! Enough of your blathering! That's how you justify spirit as something worthwhile?! That is merely humans hoping, deluding themselves that they are happy and safe! The emotions roiling inside me... Rage, hatred, frustration... These ugly emotions arise because of my own incomplete spirit!”

This shame-ridden speech leaves absolutely no doubt that Cyrus is capable of experiencing emotion, and quite deeply. Perhaps this is why it sticks in people’s mind where his previous emotional moments did not. It splits open the seam: his entire anti-emotion project is driven by an emotional reaction to emotion.

Where Diamond and Pearl allowed you to get away with thinking Cyrus is straightforwardly cold, Platinum foregrounds his contradictions. He’s not emotionless; he’s repressed. He is not without spirit; he is actually highly spirited. Remember that spirit is made of three parts in these games - emotion, willpower, and knowledge. Cyrus clearly possesses an enormous amount of willpower and knowledge, and by those two alone he can be considered highly spirited. If one considers that he’s also capable of intense emotion, then the twist becomes that the person who most wants to destroy spirit is spirit’s most spectacular slave. 

In my opinion, it is this new lens, this reevaluation, that makes him a fascinating and great Pokemon villain, because we are forced to deal with the fact that we bought into his narrative, and it was simply never true. We spend most of the game seeing him as he wants us to see him, until we realize that that was only a persona. We are allowed to see a version of Cyrus he would never want us to see, and it’s only fitting that it happen in the Distortion World, away from the rest of the world, when his plan has been destroyed beyond repair. If Cyrus isn’t actually emotionless, then it begs the question - why did he become like this? Why does he want us to see him like that?

Becoming Cyrus

D/P was the first time that childhood info was given about any Pokemon villain in the games. We only get a very small snippet - that he was a brilliant student who didn’t associate with others and preferred the company of machines - but it forces us to imagine him as a boy. Bringing in his childhood means the games want us to ask the question - how did he become like this? This question, this becoming, is never asked of previous villains. Why was Giovanni like that? Why were Archie and Maxie like that? Because they were greedy or selfish or insane or misguided, end of story as far as the games were concerned.

Platinum delves further into his backstory, with Cyrus’s grandfather mentioning that Cyrus struggled trying to meet his parents’ expectations and retreated into playing with machines instead. His grandfather even suggests that he should have taken him in and felt guilty that he didn’t, implying a substantial amount of dysfunction or neglect in Cyrus’s home.

There’s the Old Notebook in the Eterna City building. Japanese fans have long believed that this is Cyrus. The original Japanese text is very clearly written by a child, but American localizers changed the text to sound more lofty to signal a precocious child (or an intelligent adult remembering their childhood); subsequent media have linked Cyrus to Rotom so repeatedly that they may as well put a big sign on future versions of the Sinnoh games saying “Cyrus totally wrote this by the way”. Why does it matter? Because the Old Notebook complicates his childhood yet again by having his own words about his childhood. He was not an emotionless, sociopathic child. He was actually… quite normal. Adorable, even. He becomes friends with a Rotom, hangs out with it all the time, names it, and writes excitedly about all the cool things Rotom can do and how they’re linked “heart to heart.” When Rotom disappears after being startled, he frantically goes looking for it. Nothing in this journal suggests a child who was against making bonds. The final words - that he and Rotom would always be together - are ominous, because as Rowan informs us, the boy and Rotom would not always be together, as Rotom would disappear after being presented to scientists to study.

These three child versions of Cyrus stand in contrast to the adult performance we are exposed to throughout Platinum. Hearing about someone’s childhood is inherently vulnerable because it’s a time before they had formed their persona. The child Cyrus is presented to us in three different ways - brilliant but isolated; exhausted and pitiable; excitable and playful. These directly challenge the self-sufficient version that we encounter throughout. They ask, over and over, how did this child become that adult? And in the biographical details, they hide the answer. Internalized perfectionism, preference for predictability, emotional neglect, intellectualization as a defense mechanism.

None of this exonerates Cyrus. He still led an organization that bombed a marsh, drained a lake, stole people’s Pokemon, took people hostage, kidnapped and experimented on legendary Pokemon, enchained legendary Pokemon against their will, and tried to recreate (or even destroy) the world according to his own personal ideal where “spirit” would be eliminated.  He is dangerous and rigid. That he appears to have suffered does not excuse his actions. But then why would the games mention his backstory at all? If they only wanted us to judge him, they could have kept him as he was in Diamond and Pearl, with only the briefest biographical detail in Sunyshore. The biographical details are expanded on in Platinum because, on some level, they want us to understand that he did not emerge fully formed from the ether. He was not born bad. He was once a child who was mishandled and whose temperament led him to treat respond to that mishandling in the most extreme way possible. Platinum invites us to view him as a dangerous but still tragic figure, one whose life could have gone very differently.

Other Voices

There are a few other details introduced into Platinum that support this reading. One is the speech in the HQ, where Cyrus is rallying the troops. Looker mentions that Cyrus is only 27. Most people do a double-take at this because Cyrus looks like he’s 50 what with his icy blue hair, wrinkles between his eyes, and hollowed cheeks, and the tiny spritework of him in battle makes these even worse. Perhaps you just take this as a corrective, or a funny detail. But if you think about this, it’s unusual. The Pokemon games rarely like to age characters directly. How old is Giovannie? Maxie? Archie? Chairman Rose? Here the games reveal directly, not through side material, that Cyrus is “only” 27. He should be at the club, not leading a paramilitary attack on metaphysics! Knowing that he’s a guy in his late 20s brings up a lot of questions. How did his life get to the point where he was spending his youth running this organization? How much work is he doing that he looks substantially aged compared to his true age? What went wrong with him? His youth is emphasized because it’s relevant, because it’s tragic that someone so young has already invested so much of his life in this destructive path, and it’s clearly taken a toll on him.

Similarly, Cynthia’s confrontation with him in the Distortion World provides a much needed counter to his pontification. For most of the of the game, nobody ever talks to Cyrus. He talks to himself, or he talks to you, or he rallies his subordinates, but he is never faced by anyone who regards him as an equal. Cynthia is not impressed by him. She asks why can’t he find peace in this world by making a space for himself, rather than imposing his vision on everyone. She states to the player,

“The world awaited your birth. Not only yours, either. The Pokémon with you. The people close to you. All the Pokémon and people were born because they have a part in the world.”

This sounds like a counter to Cyrus's idea that Giratina will destroy the world, and it is. But it also inadvertently suggests that Cyrus also was born because he has a part in the world. If her earlier quote about her telling him to live by himself sounded dismissive, this one sounds more inclusive, raising the possibility of a world where Cyrus can be healthily integrated into being.

And when he breaks down after you defeat Giratina, she doesn’t gloat over him. She simply provides an alternative explanation: shared experience creates bonds and meaning that make life worth living. Sadness creates a contrast to joy, and anger allows us to feel compassion. There’s another alternative world offered here, that the solution to the despair he felt was not isolation and revolution, but compassion. Once again, the games subtly ask us to imagine an alternative Cyrus who experienced compassion instead of what he went through in his youth.

The other Galactic Commanders seemed genuine in their admiration of Cyrus, but Charon provides the harshest view on Cyrus. If Cynthia politely shuts him down, Charon is downright rude, saying (in Japanese) that he was “an overthinking kid” and that he didn’t know what anyone saw in him. Once again, his age is foregrounded, only this time to suggest that his entire venture was nothing but youthful folly.

And for a final Platinum detail, Saturn’s reason for joining Cyrus is changed. Diamond/Pearl Saturn thought that “his logical words” and “confident manner of speaking” were enthralling, but Platinum Saturn  drops the emphasis on logic and instead foregrounds the irony of Cyrus using “fiery exhortations” and the power of spirit to achieve his goals. 

All in all, Platinum downplays the idea that Cyrus is a cool, logical mastermind. It goes out of its way to challenge that vision of him with biographical details, multiple differing interpretations of him, showing him losing control in the Distortion World, and reminding us that as much as he may not have liked it, he was still a human being too. The combined changes from Platinum complicate Diamond and Pearl’s vision of Cyrus, and add a tragic twist to it. “He didn’t have to be this way,” the games seem to suggest. “He could have been a part of this world. He internalized dangerous messages and then took them to an extreme. But it was not his destiny to become what he did.” This counterfactual is unusual for the games, who up until this point had presented their villains pretty straightforwardly and with little interest in why they were what they were.

Conclusion

Platinum's Cyrus is still a fascinating character. Not only does his plan address the obvious flaw of Diamond/Pearl Cyrus's plan, where the Lake Spirits can always balance one of Dialga/Palkia, but it addresses the straightforwardness of Diamond/Pearl Cyrus's character. By waiting until the climax of the game to deliver its emotional revelations, Platinum forces you to reevaluate not just the Cyrus you spent the whole game watching, but the Cyrus in Diamond/Pearl retroactively as well.

Overall, I do think he was just a bit too ambitious for GameFreak’s storytelling chops at the time. Trying to handle all these moving parts - his mechanistic philosophy, isolated upbringing, connection to Rotom, running a genuinely harmful organization, the big heady question of whether the human spirit is redeemable - ended up being too much for them to handle. Nobody in the games engages his argument head on. They mostly say they find him incomprehensible, or that they like the current state of the world. Playing Platinum is thus a fascinating exercise where a guy keeps saying something that sounds vaguely reasonable on the surface (“it seems human nature is the root cause of a lot of suffering; perhaps it’s worth changing this at the root instead of making superficial changes”) while the world around him is too cozy to challenge him seriously.