Ozzie

P2- He know what he was doing in XY was wrong, know he was going to regret it for the rest of his life, but was resolved because he truly believed it was something he had to do. While his methods were extreme, his motives were good, so it is easier to give someone like him redemption. Lysandre's amnesia resets him back to how he was before becoming disillusioned by humanity's greed to an extent. P3- L is essentially the "real" Lysandre again. Apparently he was a nice guy prior to the events of those games, but seeing the world become more spoilt over time and the actions of others caused Lysandre to snap. L lost his memories, but he's is the hopeful and the gentle guy Lysandre once was. As he relearns his horrible actions, he starts facing them and resolves to be better. At the end of of Legend Z-A he is on that path. P4- Lysandre reborn, if you will. I find it interesting they represent that in his design. His hair was like a pyroar before, but now it looks like a litleo from the front. He is starting from scratch again. Apologize again for the long post and hope you have a great day!

oh yeah, i've posted about this before (can't believe that was two years ago LOL.) tbh him being a good man who was jaded was established extremely heavily in XY but over the years bc people hadn't played XY in ages and just remembered it through memes and vague memories i get the impression a lot of people just kept this idea that lysandre was just this rich asshole who wanted to kill poor people which he found ugly. in a way i can't rly 100% blame people bc that is how team flare grunts act (i have also written about this before!!!) and finding out in that one interview that TF grunts were meant to be more goofy/funny was rly illuminating lol, but unfortunately i think the (i assume purposeful) contrast was lost on a lot of people.

i thought it was interesting that ZA finally 100% confirms that team flare was not created to fulfill the ultimate weapon goal but was originally there to help people. they kinda did that in the anime but it was extremely half-assed lol. you really do get the impression (at least imo) in XY tho that the people who are following lysandre on that (bad) road are not people that lysandre probably would have picked if he was in a better state of mind, but also if he was in a better state of mind he wouldn't have picked anyone so!!!

anyway ofc i agree with you that (taking all of that into account) it's easier to give lysandre a redemption, i guess i also just grew jaded from the general impression people had of him in fandom + the black & white portrayal he got in other subcanons prior to pokémas (which is why i cited pokémas specifically.) in the anime the "team flare used to be good" thing is literally just mentioned in passing, lysandre is otherwise portrayed as cartoonishly evil in a way that i guess you can fanwank as being him having had a psychotic break if you really want to but just comes out as uhhhhhhh not great. in the manga it's a little better? i will give it that. but honestly not by much. tho i will say i guess we found out why they suddenly retconned him dying in that canon!!!