#samthoughts

the dichotomy is very interesting to me bc he's fire-themed and he does go on tirades and it's easy to imagine that he might behave closer to that unhinged energy from the HQ in private when he's less reliant on this public persona but there's definitely a disconnect there. augustine praises him for his warmth and passion and he's obviously got that well-liked reputation as a benefactor but i do think his outward demeanor is supposed to come off as at least partially acted, not necessarily in a manipulative way (bc when he cracks it's obvious that he does believe in what he's saying, his methods notwithstanding) more in a "learned this was how to better appeal to others" way. which makes sense bc he is a business man

it does make the times when he behaves horrendously and says weird shit even fuckier tho. like when he's being rude af to diantha or admitting to his fascination with the ultimate weapon and how it ended the war etc. like does he realize how he comes off and doesn't care... does he not realize... is he up his own ass and convinced he's right anyway <- likely

one way to look at it that i think is fascinating is to see the way he behaves as like. symptomatic of him already having crossed the line separating the passionate benevolent entrepreneur wanting to better the world from the omnicidal stubborn asshole who throws a fit and chooses death rather than defeat, but bc we meet him when it's already "too late" as it were we don't have anything to compare it to. which makes it less poignant unfortunately tho i do think there's something to be said there (esp when considering what augustine + npcs have to say about him)

so, to me, team flare has three layers of goals/motivations:

making the world beautiful in the sense of getting rid of perceived ugliness, like people who are deemed "unworthy" due to factors outside of their control (i.e. team flare grunts talking about how team flare is going to get rid of ugly poor people who are polluting the world by being poor and cringe and unfashionable)

making the world beautiful in the sense of ensuring that it won't succumb to the negative aspects of human nature and will be preserved for people who are deemed "worthy" due to factors that are mostly "lysandre said so" tbh (there is some intricacy to that i think but for the sake of this argument this is enough) (i.e. lysandre talking about well. more or less exactly that honestly)

lysandre wanting to make a difference and be remembered as the person who's made the world better/more beautiful/less likely to be corrupted by others/war etc (in a "triumphant hero" sense mostly, tho i do think his enthusiasm @ the protag & friends hints at him also being willing to be inspiring as a villainous figure also)

now there is reason to believe (based on things lysandre says and his notes) that that third reason was inspired by AZ and AZ's legend/story, where AZ is remembered as the king who, yes, killed millions, but also ended the great war and made it so that kalos could prosper and thrive in the future

i always idly wondered why lysandre doesn't recognize AZ; it's kind of a silly, inconsequential thing that i guess serves to highlight the fact that he's so blinded by what he's undertaking that he doesn't even make the connection that the inhumanly gigantic man in possession of the key to the ultimate weapon must be AZ

but actually, now that i've thought about it (in a tangent about something completely unrelated, which is hilarious) the dramatic irony of it is that... lysandre, who wants more than anything to make an impact on history, who wants to be recognized as the man who changed the world for the better... couldn't even recognize his own ancestor, the nearly mythological figure he was likely inspired by

lysandre is very serious & passionate... he has grand ideals and a vision for the world... meanwhile most of his grunts are only interested in mocking you for not being fashionable enough and complaining about poor people ruining the world. lysandre doesn’t actually say anything about poor people or even ugly (in the physical/fashion sense) people ruining the world! and yet it’s all his grunts talk about.

i think it’s brilliant personally. the disconnect between him and the people he’s gathered... lysandre is absolutely “the end justifies the means” at his core; he’s recruiting people who have money because he needs money. he probably doesn’t even care about the lower ranking members of team flare and doesn’t actually see them as “chosen ones” beyond the fact that they were literally “chosen” by him. i think it’s interesting because it highlights how jaded he is, which is highlighted even more by the way he reacts to you, the protagonist, having actual convictions and going against him, which is delight and enthusiasm. 

i feel like people have a tendency to think of sycamore as "naive" (this is the gentlest way possible to put this obviously) because of the whole lysandre thing which i think is a bad read of his character that's rooted in multiple things

i remember way back when people would argue lysandre didn't actually care about sycamore because he doesn't ask him to join team flare and is basically planning on killing him which imo is a grave misunderstanding of lysandre's character which is weird because you literally have all the elements in canon to know this is silly

we can only speculate on the first part (why he never asked sycamore to join team flare. he might even have asked and sycamore said no who tf can say) so i just want to focus on the second because we actually have canonical info that can shed light on that

which is that lysandre was going to sacrifice all pokémons including his even though 1) he's obviously very much bonded to them (more on that in a sec) 2) it obviously pains him to do so (he cries about it... your fave would never)

one might argue he doesn't actually care that much and/or is faking but we actually have canonical proof that he does care a lot about at least one of them for sure: his gyarados

gyarados is such an interesting choice for his main pokémon for many reasons but the three that interest us in the context of his post are as follow:

1) his gyarados can mega-evolve, which canonically means his bond with lysandre is very strong

2) not only that, but gyaradoses are known for being very fierce and hard to tame and control, and even worse when mega-evolved, which precludes that you'd need to be a very strong trainer with a very strong bond to get there in the first place

3) this one is more speculative since we really have no way to know how long lysandre has had his gyarados and whether he was caught as a magikarp or not but assuming he was this means lysandre cared enough to raise a pokémon collectively known as weak and useless, knowing he'll only see results in the far future (very interesting...)

what does this mean? it means that to lysandre the cause was more important than the things he cared deeply about. for me this is a very defining aspect of his character. when i think about pre-canon sycamore/lysandre the idea that lysandre wasn't willing to compromise on his ideals even out of love for sycamore is the most tragic and tastiest aspect of their relationship (assuming we're going with full canon compliant of course)

and honestly? i think sycamore would agree with that. i think sycamore admired lysandre's unwillingness to surrender his convictions no matter what happened. obviously he didn't agree with the end result but i genuinely think lysandre's uncompromising tendencies were something he looked up to. i think it's really interesting how this keeps coming up between them (like in the pokémas event when lysandre tells him he won't change his mind and sycamore seems unsurprised by this)

also relatedly if you really think the guy who literally constantly namedrops augustine sycamore and defines the protagonists and their "chosen ones" status through the fact that they were chosen by augustine sycamore specifically doesn't care about him you're just bad at reading and understanding characters sorry

lysandre's team is by and large royalty-themed which makes sense of course! no particular order to tackle them in just vibing

pyroar is the pokémon usually associated with lysandre in official merch and the likes. his hair was definitely styled to be reminiscent of a mane. the imagery is straightforward: lions are associated with kings. there's the whole "king of the jungle" thing ofc but also lions are associated with english royalty in particular. the lion association is probably also what influenced him having a 4:1 female/male ratio of scientists.

i tend to write litleo as being lysandre's first pokémon, given to him as a child as a family tradition. this would be how malva got hers as well.

the nickname "Orléans" probably doesn't require much of an explanation; it's a name associated with the french royal family. if you want bonus lore about it though, i actually partially stole it from a movie called Marquis which is about a talking dick and involves terrifying puppets, one of which is a lion named Orléans. i have not seen the movie.

gyarados is lysandre's mega-evolved pokémon. i find this fact fascinating for many reasons, some i will explain shortly. magikarp's japanese name is koiking and its design is definitely kingly. interestingly, it mostly loses these attributes upon evolving, which might make it seem like an odd choice for a royalty-themed team. i have shared some of my thoughts about lysandre's gyarados in a previous post, but i will touch on a point i haven't discussed yet (here at least. i've talked about it a bit on twitter.)

even disregarding shipping opinions, it's plain as day that lysandre and sycamore were created as counterparts. thematically, they are linked respectively to death, despair, pessimism, destruction, the color red (yveltal) and life, hope, optimism, creation, the color blue (xerneas.) imo the fact that lysandre's key pokémon is blue and associated with the opposite type to his other main pokémon (water vs fire) isn't a coincidence. we can only speculate what it means, i suppose, but i find it very interesting.

i tend to write magikarp as being lysandre's second pokémon, usually because his litleo caught one and lysandre rescued him as a result. (him having a cat and a fish is also kind of funny...)

the nickname "Charlemagne" probably doesn't merit an explanation either. he's a frank king. it's a long name, which fits a long pokémon.

mienfoo/mienshao is an ermine, which are linked to royalty because of the fur, mostly, although it also relates to heraldry. it's definitely lysandre's most underrated pokémon imo.

i haven't actually written about how lysandre and mienfoo met much! i tend to see him as being his most recent pokémon. rescued by sycamore and kept at the lab, he takes an interest in lysandre. maybe i'll write about it in more details someday.

the nickname "Pyrrhus" comes from King Pyrrhus of Epirus from which comes the term "pyrrhic victory." it also means "red-haired" so there's that. i don't think either of those require much elaboration.

it's not the first instance of murkrow/honchkrow being linked to a team leader, and it's pretty unsurprising, considering honchkrow's whole deal is being at the head of a murkrow gang. in french its name even contains the word "boss" (and in english, of course, there’s “honcho” in there as well.)

the link with royalty isn't as straightforward at first, but my personal theory is that it relates to Odin and his crows. there are a lot of references to norse mythology in pokémon xy, most notably irt the legendary trio, so it doesn't seem that far-fetched. Odin is tied to death, war, and royalty (among other things.)

i also have never written about lysandre meeting his murkrow. i like to think they ran into each other in some of his later travels, maybe before he met sycamore in lumiose.

the nickname "Léon" doesn't actually have any interesting story behind it! obviously it relates to lions, but i was actually thinking of the fact that in french people say that a peacock's cry sounds like "Léon"... how this relates to murkrow/honchkrow, don't ask me, but it stuck.

that's most of what i had to say on this subject, heehoo. i'll leave you with this old drawing.

[Sam turns off notifications on his phone so it will stop blowing up.]