LUSAMINE IS AN UNREDEEMABLE ABUSER

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[ HEAVY SUBJECT AHEAD (obviously) ]

Lusamine, as displayed in SMUSUM, is an unrepentant, horrific child abuser that cannot be redeemed.

I don't understand why some people constantly argue against this fact, but I do know that "Lusamine is a lame villain" or "Lusamine can be reedeemed" is something that comes up a lot, and so I want to make sure that anyone who interacts with this journal knows exactly where I stand.

Gladion is an abused child. His "affection" for Lusamine is that of an abused child desiring something from their parent that does not exist. The only reason Lillie/Gladion do anything for her in any of the games is Japan's firm stance on filial piety (loyalty to your parents), and if the story had been written by anyone who actually understood and respected abuse victims, this would not have happened.

SMUSUM says that it the burden of the abused to care for/change their abusers, and that is not true nor do I respect such a view.

In short, Lusamine is unredeemable and a nasty abuser, and while Gladion has mixed feelings about her (as abused children do), he is played with the foundation of not forgiving her, excusing her abuse, or being willing to be her carer -- because it is not on his shoulders to care for the one who's damaged him.

If you want to read a very good break-down of Lusamine and her abusive nature, Scrawlers on Tumblr has a good take, and WrightlySo also does.

I'll post both of those rundowns here in the comments, just in case something happens to the links.

Comments

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Well, let’s first call out the elephant in the room: despite US/UM Lusamine being more mentally stable than S/M Lusamine, Lillie still gets emotionally abused either way. In both games, Lillie has trust issues, runs away from home, and reflects on being treated like a doll and forced to wear whatever her mother wanted her to wear at all times.

This is a problem, because in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, Lillie never gets to call out her mother for this. The end of her character arc in Sun/Moon is growing independent of her mother, calling her mother out, and at the end, simultaneously working to take care of her mother (by finding Bill) and growing up (by going on a Pokemon journey of her own).

S/M Lillie got to overcome her trauma and grow up. US/UM Lillie went through a rough patch when Lusamine went too far; by the end, Lillie’s comfortably training Pokemon under her mother’s wing, with no need to go on her own journey or call out her mother. S/M’s ambiguous ending with her Pokemon journey in Kanto meant that the player could assume Lillie would be strong enough to take Nebby with her one day; US/UM’s ending just sticks her with one Clefairy, a weaker Pokemon than some literal toddlers run around with in Alola.

Gladion, similarly, doesn’t have to overcome neglect or abuse at all in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. He’s basically just the son that went out on a Pokemon journey without asking permission– he basically just comes back while doing some training to check in and help out for a little while. Once Necrozma is stopped, he gets to go on a training trip to Kanto– not because he wants to get help for his mother, not because he was particularly inspired by the player’s actions, not because he needs to be away from Alola to be confident and grow… He’s just going to Kanto to train because Kanto is a cool place to train. There’s no deeper meaning than that. Lusamine waves as he leaves and he waves back to signify that… Yeah, everything’s cool. No hard feelings there.

Gladion in S/M feels tremendous responsibility for leaving Lillie alone with his mentally ill mother and wants to atone for Lusamine’s mistakes in running the Aether Foundation. It’s very convenient that US/UM Gladion doesn’t have to deal with any of that.

Of course, Guzma’s arc doesn’t really have ANY depth or meaning in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. He was a broken down, sad guy who lost the island challenge, just like Sun/Moon. He started doing the morally dubious things Lusamine said because she showed him respect and kindness, just like in Sun/Moon. And then, after he loses to the player, and it looks like Lusamine’s plan is going to backfire… Lusamine admits she was wrong, and the player saves the world. Lusamine and Guzma are still chill at the end of the game, she’s just (presumably) done ordering him to steal Pokemon. Guzma’s pretty much the exact same person with some new respect for the player. That’s about it.

S/M Guzma is depressed and crashing at his parents’ house, while US/UM Guzma is chilling with the Team Skull members, presumably just barely avoiding committing crimes.

At the heart of all of this, of course, is Lusamine herself.

Lusamine in Sun/Moon is a tragic figure, broken by the loss of her husband. Lusamine lost her mind, abused her children, and almost killed everyone in Alola as a result of her loss. In the end, she’s in a mental hospital, which is presumably the only thing stopping her from going to jail for kidnapping Pokemon and endangering the entire region.

Lusamine in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon is treated, essentially, as a well-intentioned but misled extremist. Yes, she did bad things, but she was trying to save the world, you see. Maybe Nebby would’ve died, and maybe Lillie wasn’t treated as well as she could have been, and maybe Lusamine put everyone in danger by trying to handle it all by herself with Guzma… But, you know, it was all for a good cause. Ultimately, opening the wormholes is what let the player get to Necrozma and defeat it.

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon still has Lusamine apologize for what happened with mistreating her children and endangering the region, but… You know. Everyone says it’s all good.

So the mentally ill S/M Lusamine was changed into the well-intentioned but misguided US/UM Lusamine.

The Pokemon stealing and freezing in crystal thing… It’s never really explained or justified.

In addition, Lusamine being justified in a later edition of the original story bears some uncomfortable resemblance to real life examples of abusers trying to justify their actions:

“Don’t you see? Yes, I crushed your sense of confidence, Lillie, but I was trying to save the world! My mind was elsewhere!”

Stuff like that is unfortunately common in the real world, where abusive parents will often express that their mistreatment of their children is because of some trauma or ongoing problem in their own lives.

And unlike S/M Lillie and Gladion, who regard their mother as ill and want her to be healed without explicitly forgiving her, US/UM Lillie and Gladion forgive Lusamine for everything. They think coming together as a family is more important than whatever abuse they may have suffered in the past, which is… Not a great change.

It would be one thing if US/UM Lusamine was the original and S/M Lusamine never existed: this means that she always would’ve been well-intentioned and her abuse would’ve been minimal. But going from the abusive, mentally-ill S/M Lusamine to the justified, well-meaning US/UM Lusamine gives off the incredibly uncomfortable feeling of justifying and downplaying emotional abuse within the greater framework of the 7th generation’s storyline.