Gladion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nulltofull) wrote2022-09-27 03:49 am
nulltofull) wrote2022-09-27 03:49 am
LUSAMINE IS AN UNREDEEMABLE ABUSER
[ 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.
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.
no subject
In both SM and USUM, when Hau exclaims in shock over the fact that Lusamine, Gladion, and Lillie are all related, Lusamine calls them both “wretches” and says that they “left [her]”, and in that same breath once again disowns them, saying they aren’t a family any longer. Despite how Game Freak wanted to seemingly tone down her abuse, they left her disowning both of her children (and insulting them in the same breath) when she replies to Hau in the trophy room. Furthermore, in SM especially, her abuse is all over the place once again. In the above little speech, she:
The line, “All I ever did was give you two all the love I had, and all you did was betray me” line was so powerful to me that, when I played through SM the first time, I had to put it down. The reason for this is because the last conversation I ever had with my abusive mother had her calling me a traitor for getting out of that house. My biological mother insists, to this day (as I know from talking with my sister, who still speaks to her) that all she ever did was love me. She insists that I “betrayed” her by leaving. When I say that Lusamine’s dialogue is realistic, I say this because her dialogue was so on-point for an abusive parent that I actually had to put my 3DS down to recollect myself for a moment. The way Lusamine abuses her children is a dead-on ringer for what my mother put me through for the first fifteen years of my life. So for you to say things like:
Is extremely upsetting and hurtful, because it’s basically like you’re saying that the abuse my mother put me through was not real abuse. It’s like you’re saying that my experiences were not valid. It’s like you’re agreeing with her when she says that she never abused me, and that I betrayed her, and that I was in the wrong for finding a way out of that situation. I know that was likely not your intention, particularly since we don’t even know each other, but that is exactly how your words come across, and it’s upsetting, particularly since I still struggle with wondering if I really blew everything out of proportion and was in the wrong for leaving sometimes, especially since …
Mmm, that.
The thing about abusive parents is that they’re not 100% cruel 100% of the time. The reason why Ghetsis is so cartoonish is because we’re meant to believe that he’s 100% cruel 100% of the time. But with actual abusers, that isn’t the case. The “cycle of abuse” is a concept that exists for a reason. Yes, there are abusive incidents, and yes, abuse is a pattern; but part of that pattern is abusers acting kind, sweet, or even loving toward their victims, in order to convince their victims to stay. Either they do this through guilt (“I need you, I could never live without you”), or through faux apologies and promises of love (“I’m so sorry, you know I’d never want to hurt you, I love you so much”), or something else similar. The victim is led to believe that they have to stay, or that they should stay, and that deep down their abuser really truly loves them, and is really truly trying to change.
So yes, Lillie remembers a time when Lusamine danced with her in the rain, and let her sleep in her bed afterward (though notably, this memory does not exist in USUM). Likewise, I remember plenty of times when my mother was comforting and kind to me, when she seemed to actually have interest in me, when she seemed to love me. I have many specific memories of her kindness, no different from Lillie’s story of dancing in the rain with her mother.
But those times when my mother was kind to me do not negate the times that she was cold, abusive, and downright cruel to me. They don’t negate the years, upon years, upon years of verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. Her acts of kindness, and the specific memories I have those acts of kindness, don’t negate her acts of cruelty and the specific memories I have of those moments, too. These two things don’t cancel each other out. They both were the actions of the same exact person. As much as my C-PTSD sometimes tries to convince me that the memories I have where she was being kind mean that she really did love me and that I was cruel and blowing things out of proportion by leaving, I know that I’m not making up the abusive things she did to me, and I wasn’t wrong by leaving. I know that. Or at least, I remind myself of that whenever my trauma tries to tell me that I’m wrong.
Lillie has a memory of Lusamine being kind to her, but that is not out of the ordinary for abused kids. That Game Freak would use it as an indicator that Lusamine was nice once and therefore Lillie should forgive her is, in my personal opinion, wrong. Again, it makes me feel as though the message I’m being given is, “Your mother was nice to you sometimes, therefore it was your job to change her, and since you didn’t, you’re in the wrong, a traitor.” It’s a terrible message to send to people like me. Abused children are not responsible for “saving” their parents. I can forgive Lillie for wanting to try, because she is eleven and is the victim of long-term abuse, and—as demonstrated with the cycle of abuse—abuse survivors are often caught up in the mindset that they can change their abuser, that they can make things better. But that is not how it works. It should not be on Lillie’s or Gladion’s shoulders to “redeem” Lusamine. A happy ending for them would have been having them adopted by Kukui and Burnet, particularly since Burnet loved Lillie so much she was so devastated by Lillie leaving that she couldn’t even come to the port.
Lastly, this:
Actually, Nihilego’s toxins release inhibitions, rather than ramping up certain traits. It’s not that Nihilego made Lusamine’s behavior worse, but rather, it stopped her from caring about the consequences of things she wanted to do anyway. So even if she was under UB-01’s influence (and there’s no concrete evidence that she was; she’s being healed from toxins she was infested with during her time as Motherbeast in SM), all it would do is make her feel more comfortable voicing her desire to disown her children, and otherwise treat them like garbage. I.e., she always had the desire to be an abuser, now she’s just acting on it.
Second, even if that was the case, that does not stop her from being an abuser. Someone who abuses their children after binge drinking whiskey is still an abuser, they’re just an abusive alcoholic. Someone who abuses their children after getting high on crystal meth is still an abuser, they’re just an abusive drug addict. The fact that Lusamine was potentially high while abusing her children does not make her less of an abuser. It doesn’t negate what she did. And while you could argue, “But she could recover and be redeemed!” that … doesn’t exactly jive, either. Drug addicts can absolutely be rehabilitated, yes, but there’s a difference between being rehabilitated for drug use, and putting the onus on a drug addicted abuser’s victims to rehabilitate and redeem said abuser. If Lusamine recovered on her own (perhaps with Wicke’s help) and then, many years later, tried to reach out to Gladion and Lillie, and they decided to give her a second chance … okay, maybe. But acting as if the toxins completely negate what she did and excuse her—acting as if Lillie and Gladion will be just fine now, even as they’re left to take care of her … doesn’t feel right.
Lastly, you and I had very different reactions to her parting line to Lillie. Lusamine saying:
Is both another insult, and another way to show that Lusamine hasn’t actually learned anything. It’s insulting because it’s insinuating that Lillie wasn't beautiful before; the girl that spent so many years being abused and mistreated by Lusamine, who put her own personal safety at risk to save Cosmog, was still “not beautiful enough” in Lusamine’s eyes. Lusamine only sees Lillie “becoming beautiful” now, at the end of the game, because Lillie is showing care and concern over her. We actually see this in USUM as well; Lusamine calls Gladion and Lillie “wretches” who “left her” when Hau asks about their family status, but once Gladion and Lillie show fear over losing her, then and only then does she call them “sweet” and “kind” and praise them in any way. Lusamine is only kind to her children when they are praising or otherwise doing something for her. The minute they try to assert themselves in any way, she disowns them and calls them wretches and traitors. That is hallmark abusive behavior.
Second, by harping once again on Lillie’s “beauty,” Lusamine shows that she has not actually learned anything, or changed in any way. Beauty is still all she cares about. We have no reason to believe that she’ll behave any differently once she awakens from her coma, because her parting line just showed us that her priorities are in the same exact place they were before. The only difference is that she’s now recognizing that Lillie cares for her, therefore she’ll use a backhanded compliment of sorts to try and show gratitude … (while at the same time putting her finger against Lillie’s lips to stop her talking) … but that’s not saying much. Lusamine hasn’t changed, she hasn’t learned, she hasn’t grown, she isn’t sorry. That’s not a mark of redemption. All that line did was make me angrier, particularly when Lillie and Gladion had to put their own lives on hold to take care of her (as expected of abused children—I would have done the same when I was eleven) because of Japan’s adherence to filial piety.
This ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, and to be honest I’ll be surprised if you read the whole thing. But I had to respond, because you saying that Lusamine isn’t actually an abuser (but instead that she “could’ve gotten there”) when her abuse mirrors what my mother put me through for the first fifteen years of my life—when it mirrors what I’m still going to therapy for to this day—was very hurtful to me. It felt invalidating, and I wasn’t going to be able to rest without saying something, so here it is. I’ve said my piece. Thank you for listening.