weaksauce

So, people have made a lot of strong connections between Kalos and Paldea. Not just the obvious geographical one, but like, with the lore. The disc Pokémon being made of hexagons reminiscent of Zygarde, (A)rea (Z)ero, all that kind of stuff. At this point, I’m pretty convinced the Pokémon War, or at least AZ’s bioweapon, is pretty interconnected to Area Zero and its shenanigans.

But how does that connect to the present day? I have a ✨theory✨

I think AZ is a distant ancestor of Arven and the Professor. It makes a lot of narrative sense, but it could also explain a lot of the events that lead us to where we kick off the events of the game.

In the case of Arven, the obvious connection is the lengths they would go for their Pokémon (Floette, Mabosstiff). I also noticed that their one Pokémon is the only living thing they trust, and that they are both in a situation where they lost their (apparent) only family to outlandish goals (AZ’s tyrannical brother and of course, Arven’s parents).

But where Arven inherits AZ’s best qualities, the Professor inherits his worst. Both of them had fallen victim to severe tunnel vision, forcing them not to consider the consequences of pursuing their lofty goals. And that failure to consider those consequences ended up causing them to needlessly ruin and even take lives (or in Sada/Turo’s case, come close to taking lives outside of their own).

But while the narrative ties are nice, I think it explains a lot of the history, too.

Arven astutely points out that in the Violet (or Scarlet) book, paradox Pokémon are present even before the Professor invents the Time Machine. Again, I think that the original paradox Pokémon are a result of AZ’s bioweapon, which inspired Heath’s initial research trip.

But I also think Sada/Turo somehow became aware of their heritage. Maybe not of their direct link to AZ, as he’s a pretty mysterious dude, but I think coming across their connection to the Pokémon War would be a great motivator for them to start doing research down in Area Zero.

From there, naturally, their attachment would turn to the paradox pokemon they find, figuring out where they came from, and bringing them from their original time to the present. And this leg of their research would be the thing that ends up consuming them, of course.