Is Lusamine a Tragic Villain?

Discussion has begun to flood the Internet with the critical acclaim of the latest instalments of Pokémon (Sun and Moon). One of the biggest points of said discussion is the true villainous leader, Lusamine. More specifically, a debate has started on her degree of villainy in light of some revealed information the player obtains after they defeat the Pokemon League. It is to the point now where some people have started to express admiration for her position of power as a female President and sympathy for how she came to be the villain that she is. These same people often believe that the only reason for her cruelty was the neurotoxin that UB:01 (Nihilego) injected into her.

I, however, do not agree with these sentiments. Lusamine cannot be classified as a tragic villain. In fact, I believe that she was flawed even before her downward spiral; a woman who knows absolutely nothing about the true meaning of love. And as a great of a character she is, I do not sympathize with her.

In case you have not stumbled across this information yourselves, Lusamine inherited the Aether Foundation from her late father. He happened to be an extremely wealthy man that started this foundation because of a deep love for Pokémon. She not only inherited his legacy, but a strong desire to protect weak and endangered Pokémon. However, Lusamine's dream was much grander; she envisioned an utopian paradise for all Pokémon, not just those in the Alola region. 

Lusamine's husband, a scientist who worked on a side project about Ultra Wormholes, was sucked into one when one of his experiments went wrong. The only parts of him left were his research notes and a Cosmog. There is the implication that this event was the catalyst for Lusamine's villainy, prompting her to take over his research and begin working on creating a Pokémon that could destroy Ultra Beasts.

With this information, one could easily think that this is an indication that at least at one point, Lusamine was a compassionate woman. A woman who sadly lost what little remaining sanity she had left due to her husband's accident. That the only reason she became twisted was because of her grief. Other fans have pointed out that Lusamine could be considered the most 'harmless' villain in the entire franchise because the other main Pokémon villains had goals involving the destruction of the world or even the universe whereas, beyond letting the Ultra Beasts wreck Alola, all she seemed to want was to be alone in the Ultra Space with Nihilego. I vehemently disagree. One can do horrific damage even if they do not necessarily target the world.

I would think that her in-game actions and behaviour truly cemented her as a cruel, antagonistic force. Here is a comprehensive list of just SOME of the things she has said or done.

• Monomaniacally fixated on aliens that possessed terrible power; even allowing them to destroy the world if they see fit

• Psychologically and verbally abused her children (especially her daughter Lillie). Her offspring are dolls she can change for her own amusement. She micromanaged every aspect of their lives down to what clothes they should wear (which is a tactic that is even exerted on meeting Hau for the first time)

• While showing no forgiveness for her children's 'betrayals', later disowns them. She orders Guzma to kill children, and then attempts to murder them herself in a rage when they rebelled against her

• Showed little care to the Pokémon she claimed she would mother and protect. She created Type: Null through horrific experimentation to become literal Ultra Beast killers, tortured Nebby 'to death', froze the Pokémon she clung to the most so that they would stay 'perfect' (in her eyes) forever while they remained on display for her own appreciation of untarnished 'beauty'

• Used the principles on which Aether Foundation stood on for her own manipulation. Some of her employees were forced in order to do undercover work, as she no doubt threatened them with job loss and jail time. She even tricked most of them into taking Nihilego venom, which she knows is a powerful and unpredictable toxin, in order for them to become cult-like in their devotion to her 

• Allowed Team Skull to do all of the 'dirty work' for her; toying with the outcasts within this clan by taking advantage of their rougher backgrounds (ex. Guzma's personality issues) in order to use them as pawns and secret mercenaries for Aether Paradise

From this, I think Lillie and Gladion had very understandable reactions to their mother's madness. She may look like she could be an angelic mother figure, but there are even hints dropped at the beginning that she is not so nice, such as her tight smile and cold eyes. Lusamine's motivations do revolve around love, but that does not mean that she is behaving selflessly. She may rant about trying to spread her love to all, but she describes love as something that others must be worthy of. Her methods reveal her to be quite sociopathic; her brand of affection is actually a means of manipulation and control. She does not understand that true love requires sacrifice without entitlement; expecting nothing in return. It requires empathy, a trait that I believe she severely lacks. This controlling attitude tends to push others away, leaving her bewildered and often enraged over how anyone could reject her. When she states that something is 'ugly' to her, it is because it disobeys her. 'Love' to her means exerting control on anything that shows her the slightest bit of attention and whom she deems worthy of receiving her attention, reacting violently when they reject her.


Lusamine treats others like objects and tools that she can use until they are no longer useful to her. After all, even Gladion said that she's 'extremely kind as long as you mean absolutely nothing to her'. Lusamine does not comprehend that she and her actions are wrong in any way. What makes her so disconnected from reality is that she believes herself to be the victim when she is rebuffed, even in situations where she has hurt others and their rejection is a response to her manipulation or abuse. She believes that those people are in the wrong because, in her mind, she did nothing wrong for her 'love' to be rejected. She demonstrates a great deal of narcissism when she only proclaims that those only have beauty or worth if she decides to pay attention to them and they completely obey her. Even after losing for the first time, she, unironically, asks the player 'how can you be so awful?'.

In that sense, she reminds me of other 'motherly' antagonists such as the Other Mother from the film Coraline. They are both very accommodating and caring on the surface, often in the form of gifts, until the objects of their attention criticize them. At that point, they lose patience and show more of their repressed, depraved insanity. Any affection they feel and give to others is unhealthy, more akin to feeling fondness for a 'pet' rather than another individual with their own thoughts and feelings. Their idea of parental love is very twisted: be completely devoted to me to the point of total obedience and, if you disagree or want a small piece of independence, you are now worth nothing to me.

The truth is, Lusamine only sought after these 'beautiful' things (such as Pokémon) in order to own them, not protect them. Her protection means that she deems something beautiful enough to be worthy. She views those that are worthy as possessions rather than sentient beings with free will. She even states that she 'will be like a mother to all of those poor Pokémon and shower them with love. Even Pokémon from distant worlds, far from the Alola region, are worthy of my love'. Though Lillie mentioned that Lusamine was once a loving mother, I find this hard to believe considering the abuse she has to endure throughout the whole game. Not to mention, we never see a moment of Lusamine ever behaving in a truly loving manner (unless you count her last scene with Lillie after she is forcibly removed from Nihilego). Because of this, to me, Lillie's forgiveness towards her mother is more reminiscent of a child that is desperately trying to 'fix' an abuser with the belief that if they try hard enough, they will see that they love them and will therefore stop hurting them. Be it innocent bystander or her own children, Lusmine does not care who she has to hurt to get what she wants. To put in perspective, Guzma, who calls himself 'destruction in human form', thinks she's to far gone to be reasoned with. Even Faba, her most loyal right-hand man, has been shown to fear her as well!

Paradise to her is a place where only the most beautiful (i.e. prized and/or obedient) live with her alone with no other 'distractions' (like her own children). She 'loves' Nihilego in the same fashion as a surrogate family. The only reason Lillie looks similar to Nihilego is not because she IS Nihilego, but because Lusamine modelled her in its image as the only thing she truly 'loved' at that point.


Now, one could argue that the continual failure to locate her husband made Lusamine more and more desperate, which was what drove her children away. I guess you could view her extreme strictness with Lillie as a way to keep her from leaving her like Gladion did. With her family gone, all Lusamine would have left is the Ultra Space and the beasts she had fixated on for so long. I could see how that would mutate, organically, into a sort of 'love' for Nihilego. It is a sad situation, but I would still argue that Lillie, and even Nihilego, are far more tragic than Lusamine herself.

A 'tragic villain', by definition, is an antagonist that does not truly intend to be evil. Either they are mislead/manipulated, are not entirely in control of their situation/feelings, or they are pursuing a morally ambiguous ideology. The key feature is that they are trapped into committing evil. Because of this, they take little pleasure from their evil. They could be someone who is simply following orders or someone who had to commit a 'necessary evil' and never forgave themselves for it. Though this sets them up for redemption if done properly, they would believe that they are too far gone and do not deserve salvation. The viewer can sympathize with a tragic villain because they are often presented as the victim of circumstance. 

For Lusamine to be classified as a 'tragic villain', you would have to confirm that Nihilego possessed her into committing the heinous acts that I listed above. Her tragic status would have to be cemented through small moments in the story, where she would either feel remorse, guilt or shame (as inklings of her previous character). I feel like more sympathy could have been established if we saw Lusamine struggle through the effects of the neurotoxin. To be fair, she did have the kind of backstory that could make a tragic villain. Her wanting to be left with Nihilego in Ultra Space for the rest of her life because they had become her golden standard for beauty and perfection is pretty sad when you think, by that point, her entire family is gone. One could see her monomania as an unhealthy reaction to grief, which only worsened over time (such as Gladion's escape with one of the creatures she wanted to use for vengeance). And encountering Nihilego did make everything worse for her, turning her worsening sociopathy into a psychotic drive to give her 'love' to anything that even shares the slightest qualities with Nihilego and to crush anything unworthy of her 'love'. But, because she never faces the consequences for her actions, I am inclined to not even feel pity for Lusamine. After all, Lillie forgave her fairly quickly and she is never criminally charged. 

It should be noted that the only ones that have stated Lusamine was once compassionate were her children, who are going to have the most biased view of her. Though Gladion seems to be more privy to his mother's manipulative tactics, Lillie seems to believe that there is good left in her. We as the players cannot know for certain if Lusamine was every a truly good person, but I believe that she was a flawed person even before she became an antagonist. Even if she did love her husband, that does not automatically mean that she was selfless and cared for others outside of her familial bubble. Lusamine does not even try to deny Lillie's claims of selfishness and even asks her why she shouldn't only care about what she wants. She states very clearly that those that do not live up to or agree with her standards can die at her own will. 


I would make the argument that Lysandre, the leader of Team Flare, is more of a tragic villain than Lusamine. What I find interesting is how they contrast in character despite their similarities. For instance, both of them are wealthy philanthropists who are introduced long before their official reveal as the true antagonists. Both want to destroy the world after attempting to better it and are fixated on the concepts of beauty and perfection. Lysandre could be considered a 'devil in plain sight' because of his darker colour palette, but Lusamine could be a considered a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' because of her lighter colour palette. Lysandre directly leads his villainous team while Lusamine serves as a mysterious backer behind the scenes for hers. Both are massive hypocrites; they state that those that take and hurt Pokémon are awful, but they are incredibly self-serving (such as hurting anyone that gets in their way of achieving their goals and taking powerful resources for their own gain). Lysandre is convinced that mankind as a whole cannot be saved because it is fundamentally selfish (he essentially decided the world needed to change FOR him according to his own standards) whereas Lusamine rejected humanity because she cannot comprehend why no one 'loves' her.

Lysandre is a twisted antagonist that is condemned for his actions, but the game did set him up to be more sympathetic because we do see him experience a crisis of conscience when he sheds tears at the idea of Pokémon being destroyed by the Ultimate Weapon. Lysandre is shown to truly adore Pokémon, but his sanity is so frayed and his morality is so twisted that he truly believes that he must kill all outsiders of Team Flare in order to save the world. He views genocide as the only choice he has left because he is too misanthropic to believe in any good within humanity. Never mind that, even with his days of being a philanthropist, he viewed humans as hateful parasites that are destroying what beauty still remains in the world...

Therefore, I would say that Lusamine is more akin to Ghetsis, the leader of Team Plasma; an abusive tyrant who claims to look after the common welfare of Pokémon whose true agenda is ruthless and selfish. They both demonstrate confused morality, where they believe that they are the 'hero' when, in fact, they are the villain. Lusamine is delusional enough to think that she has done absolutely wrong and she is no different than regular trainers who fight with and collect Pokémon.


The subject of Nihilego is important to deconstruct, as this creature is the catalyst for Lusamine's loss of sanity. This Ultra Beast is parasitic in nature; it finds a host and then injects them with a neurotoxin to boost their natural abilities to their fullest form. They control their host as protection similar to that of a bodyguard rather than just a donor. Below is the informational passage for Nihilego that Wicke gives to you after you capture it:


This is very important. This confirms that Nihilego did not and can not possess Lusamine to commit evil. The toxin instead stimulates already existing emotions, targeting the natural aggression of humans that would normally be repressed for social acceptance. The toxin simply dulled her inhibitions, causing her to act more impulsively than she normally would. However, she still possessed the cunning to operate using manipulative tactics. After all, Lusamine was already committing torturous experiments behind closed doors. Lusamine possessed free will, her mind was simply in an intoxicated state where her drive was pushed to psychotic extremes. Thus, she should not be considered a victim of circumstance in terms of coming in contact with a powerful alien parasite. What I find more tragic is that Nihilego does not act with malicious intent. In fact, I am lead to believe that it is mostly unaware of its neurotoxin. Unlike other parasites, it does not infect a host because of a need for sustenance. Instead, its infection is a self-defence mechanism. This could mean that, even without the neurotoxin in her system, Lusamine still cared more about the Ultra Beasts and 'beauty' than for others.

Female antagonists in particular still remain to be a somewhat taboo topic, both in the media and in the real world. To this day, the idea of a female ever being genuinely evil (not just mean or 'bitchy') is still debated heavily. The nature of female villainy and sin has even spurred into comprehensive 'theories' (both modern and archaic) explaining the motivations and origins of deviance in women such as the Double Deviance theory and the Madonna-Whore complex. 

I have found that the majority of female villains typically fall into two main categories: minions and femme fatales. Minions typically have little choice and can turn to good if the hero invests some personal effort into them. Femme fatales are usually a touch misandrist and use their sexuality to commit morally ambiguous acts. Their actions are driven by the belief that, as the crude saying goes, 'behind every bitch, there's a man who made her that way'. In either case, the suggestion is that, while male villains can be evil by nature or by choice, such depths of evil are not natural for women. So, if a female character has truly evil thoughts, a man must be ultimately responsible for putting them there, even if her behavior does not hint at it. Thus, when facing justice, she is more likely to receive a less severe fate for the same crimes as a male villain might. A long-running franchise might occasionally depict a woman who is maliciously evil, or motivated by money, greed, fame, intimidation, jealousy, power, or sadism. However, they are a rarity.

This idea that women are naturally purer than men started in the Victorian era, where women were considered to be so delicate that it was thought that they should be shielded from the world. Essentially, they were treated like precious little flowers or children. During this, if a woman committed a 'sin' (which is anything that did not follow the ideals of complete obedience and purity), she was a tainted and depraved individual with no conscience. Thus, by that logic, a female criminal is a deviant against society and her nature. Using this old-fashioned sentiment, you could portray her such that she is still innocent, therefore not as bad as a man; or you could also say that she is even worse because men have the excuse of 'he cannot help himself' while a woman would have to be motivated by her own willpower. Again, this topic can easily become complicated when analyzing these theoretical ideas.

A trend that I see occur in multiple fandoms is the downplaying of certain villains. For instance, if the villain in question is physically attractive and/or a woman, they are more likely to be seen with sympathy by a mostly female fanbase (ironically enough). I honestly believe that if Lusamine was a male antagonist, more fans would be rightfully chastising her for the way she treats everyone around her. She would be considered more creepy/disgusting, like villains Cyrus and Ghetsis. I think this is partly because of the view that innate 'motherly instinct' makes women more innocent and tragic rather than cruel and despicable like they should be. Males are more likely to be the dominant personas of true antagonism while females are more likely to just be 'bitchy' or tragic victims that were forced into a life of crime. These characters in of themselves are not bad tropes per say, but it does demonstrate what writers are more likely to create in terms of a female antagonist. 

If GameFreak was attempting to make Lusamine sympathetic like Lysandre, they did not do so because her actions define her as an obsessive, dangerous sociopath. They may throw in hints of a tragic past, but any sympathy is lost as you progress through the game. I'll admit, as much as I enjoyed Sun and Moon, I believe Lusamine's force as an antagonist was not expanded enough for how important and interesting she was. I especially did not like the implication that she suddenly reverts back to a good person at the end of the story, considering that she never takes responsibility for her horrific actions AND it is stated that Lillie almost has to nag her to show how bad she has been for the past few years. If she really did have a compassionate side to her, why did she not put up more of a fight against the neurotoxin? Why did she drag innocent people into her madness, even if it was just stemmed from grief? In fact, if she was aware that she was losing control of her sanity, why does she not alert anyone? Surely, her loved ones and co-workers would have rushed to her aid if she did tell them how much she was suffering.

You are free to feel however you want about any fictional character. You can still feel sympathy for a villainous antagonist. Lusamine, in my opinion, is far too twisted to be considered tragic. Not once in the narrative do we see her struggle with her pain or have lapses in which her previous character comes to light. I believe one can appreciate her as a character without sympathizing with her. I think GameFreak was mistaken in the way they handled her, especially where they never have her learn the consequences of her actions, both as an abuser and as someone who was willing to unleash extraterrestrial terrors on innocents for her own selfish desires. I think it would have been more fitting for her characterization if she was either trapped in Ultra Space forever or was killed by Nihilego, the very objects of her dangerous obsession.

We are given a perfect example of the depths of depravity that can be seen in a woman, and yet people would rather draw extreme fetish art of her or write her off as a victim/'precious cinnamon roll'. Do not think for a second that women can never be as demented or cruel as men can. Too often, in real life, is the idea that women are naturally more precious been used by manipulative, evil women to commit crime and other nefarious deeds.