Characters / Pokémon Sun and Moon: Major Organizations

aka: Pokemon Aether Foundation

Main Character Index > Sun and Moon (Major Organizations)

WARNING: Major spoilers for Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon follow. Read at your own risk.

Team Skull

The villainous team of the Alola region. Their designs are based on punk culture, and unlike the crime syndicates and terrorist groups before them, they operate more like street gangs than anything else, having a strong sense of familial bonds throughout their ranks. Not to be confused with the trio of Poison-type Pokémon from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers.

---

Tropes that apply to the organization as a whole

• Affably Evil: They're actually pretty personable, speaking casually and showing a great deal of inter-team brotherhood, even in regards to their Pokémon.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • When you walk in on two female Grunts arguing in the Team Skull base, one of them will, depending on your gender, remark that "a boy" or "a cute girl" overheard their argument.
  • Elsewhere in Po Town, a male Grunt wonders if the reason another male Grunt keeps waving at him is because "he realizes how hot I am".
• Anti-Hero Team: Becomes this at the end of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Bat Out of Hell: Like other villainous teams before them, such as Team Rocket and Aqua/Magma, they have a penchant towards using Zubat.
• Big Fancy House: Subverted with their headquarters. The Shady House is a large mansion, but it's just as run down and derelict as the rest of Po Town.
• Bilingual Bonus: Their Leitmotif includes a singer saying "dokuro", the Japanese word for skull.
• Breaking Old Trends: The first villainous team to not have an end goal that affects the entire region, or a legendary Pokémon, they just want to lash out and get respect from a society they feel has tossed them aside.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Their symbol, worn by all members as a necklace, is a tilted 'S' stylised to form a skull's head and eyes, with an additional set of "teeth" under it to form the full skull shape.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Team Rocket. They're both criminal organizations, but while Team Rocket is The Mafia and mainly operate underground, Team Skull are Gangbangers who work out in the open. They both exploit Pokémon for profit, but while Team Rocket's ultimate goal is world domination, Team Skull's members turned to crime just to survive.
• Criminal Found Family: Not that they're great at being criminals, but Plumeria certainly seems to see them as a great big family.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Pink hair and eyes for female grunts and bright blue hair and eyes for male grunts.
• Dark Is Evil: They wear all-black outfits, and are shown to steal Pokémon and commit petty crimes throughout Alola. Even moreso, when their boss turns out to be in cahoots with the even more evil Aether Foundation.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Kid Hero, in a world where young children are sent out into the world alone. Many members mention suffering from horrible self-esteem over always losing, homelessness, and failing to complete the islands' trials. When you finally reach the town they are based out of, it is in ruins with almost no power or supplies. As one Grunt says early on, they're not out to take over the world or anything, they just want money. Albeit the postgame (where various grunts get employed or taken in by other characters) makes it clear their situation was not so desperate that they had no other options, and they just chose to focus on revenge against the society they feel that cheated them.
• Delinquent Hair: Almost all members of Team Skull revealed have unusual hair colors, with the male and female grunts having bright blue and pink hair, Plumeria having pink and yellow hair. The exception is Guzma with his white at the top, black at the bottom hair.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Implied by the sheer number of empty bottles seen lying around the Shady House.
• Endearingly Dorky: Despite being a villain team, nobody save for Lillie takes the Grunts seriously, and they always gesture wildly when they talk, during battles, and even when taken aback. Plumeria even calls them her "cute, dumb brothers and sisters".
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Female grunts wear purple eyeshadow.
• Floral Theme Naming: Plumeria, Gladiolus, and Guzmania are all genera of flowering plants.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The ending of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon shows Guzma and Plumeria standing in front of the Team Skull grunts, with the Team Skull logo crossed out in a big red X on the back of his jacket. He makes it clear that Team Skull is officially disbanded. The grunts change out of their outfits but still insist on staying with their boss. Guzma is amused by this.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Strangely enough, at no point in the story are Guzma and Plumeria in the same place, nor do they interact with each other on-screen. Later averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where they appear together during the credits.
• Gangbangers: Their gesticulation, speech patterns, and attire, as well as their more informal tone compared to previous villain groups, make them resemble American street gangs. Specifically, their outfits, as well as the fact that Guzma and Plumeria are named after plants prominent in Central and South America, gives them a resemblance to Latino street gangs from the West Coast. Furthermore, their motivation is that they're broke trainers who were never able to make a legitimate earning, and turned to a life of crime in the desperate hope of keeping themselves afloat, a common origin for a lot of American gang members.
• Going Through the Motions: When walking or speaking, the grunts gesture dramatically like stereotypical gang bangers.
• Good Costume Switch: Reformed Grunts, such as the one at Mallow's family's restaurant, have removed their Team Skull articles, now appearing as Alolan Punk Guys/Girls.
• Heel–Face Turn: Post-game, Hala takes two Team Skull grunts under his wing, and they say that they're training so that they become strong enough to help people in need. One also appears in Mallow's parents' restaurant, happy that she was given another chance. Meanwhile, Plumeria and Guzma dedicate their lives to training once again, the latter doing so with Hala in Sun and Moon.
• Helpful Mook: In Po Town, two Grunts are hanging around inside the Pokémon Center and will heal your team like any normal Pokémon Center for the paltry fee of 10 Pokédollars. They'll cheerfully bust a rhyme out for you in your support.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": One short cut scene has one of the Grunts pointing out to her friend that labelling her clothes to avoid misplacing them won't work since "[they're] all named Grunt".
• Ignored Enemy: Even when they first appear, they're completely ignored until they force you and Ilima to pay attention.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: With the exception of Lillie, nobody takes them seriously, ever. With certain dialogue choices, even the player character brushes them off as nothing more than a nuisance.
• Japanese Delinquents: While their designs are based on punk and Latino culture, they have quite a few hallmarks of the yankii subculture, such as bandanas, face masks, Delinquent Hair, excessive jewelry, and tattoos. They also care for each other like siblings, just like a Japanese group of delinquents would.
• Jive Turkey: They all speak in absurd street slang with the exception of Plumeria and Gladion.
• Kick the Dog: Most of their early actions are too funny and hopeless to be regarded as bad, but the first real nasty thing you see them do is when a couple of Grunts mock their ally Gladion for being homeless. They also steal a Yungoos belonging to a preschooler at the Aether House, so they're not above stealing from little girls.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Before you fight Guzma in Aether Paradise, you have to fight a couple grunts back to back. A third one stops you... only to let you pass without any trouble, since he's smart enough to not fight a battle he can't win.
• Laughably Evil: Confirmed by Word of God to be 100% intentional. Team Skull has become a target of mockery in Alola, mainly due to their street gang aesthetic and designs, but their plans not being able to back them up due to them being ineffectual. As for their members, there's Gladion's constant poker-face and hand gestures, Plumeria's description of her own minions as "stupid", alongside Guzma explicitly being noted as a failed Trial Captain. You can even walk away from them during your first encounter with them!
• Men Can't Keep House: Hilariously true here for the most part. Most of the Shady House is in shambles and barely livable, and even Guzma's room is cluttered. Plumeria's room, however, is clean, neat, and tidy.
• Milking the Giant Cow: The Grunts gesture wildly as they walk and speak.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: A minor example occurs when a pair of grunts the player previously encountered trying to steal berries from an elderly man try to mess up your first Trial. After losing to you again, they give up on fighting you and simply try to capture the Yungoos (in Sun) or Rattata (in Moon) that is constantly switching between three holes as you're trying to catch it. By blocking two of the holes, they restrict the Pokémon to one hole.
• Noble Demon: They genuinely seem to care about each other, with Plumeria being one of the first Admins to grow pissed off when you hurt her minions. Which makes sense when you learn that they're a bunch of failures who wound up homeless because they couldn't make a living as trainers on their own. They became a would-be family when Guzma brought them together.
• No True Scotsman: They apparently have this mindset, despite being a bunch of wild and varied people, they criticize Gladion for not really being part of Team Skull since he's their enforcer.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: They are a goofy, incompetent Laughably Evil group that's hard to take them seriously in-universe or out. That doesn't stop them from being capable of kidnapping Pokémon or people should the occasion call for it.
• Obviously Evil: Team Skull is too sinister a name to belong to anything other than a group of villains.
• Outlaw Town: Po Town, a small town that they took over, made into their headquarters and proceeded to run to the ground. It is so horribly destitute that they have the only Pokémon Center in the game that charges you for their services.
• Palette Swap: A truly unusual case of this: all of the Team Skull Grunts are palette swaps of the Alolan Punk Guy/Girl trainer class, just with Team Skull apparel on, and they have the exact same losing animations. There's signs that it might be intentional, though, between the way several of the latter Trainers talk exactly like Team Skull Grunts and how a Punk Guy and Girl are seen with the reformed Plumeria during the credits, suggesting that they might be "off-duty" Grunts who've simply taken off their Skull merch.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Most use Dark or Poison-types, not unlike Team Rocket, with a few Psychic-type Pokémon sprinkled in.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • They aren't too shy about their self-esteem issues.
  • A Meta version appears in Verdant Cavern with two male Grunts "trying" to harass you, with one conversation lampshading the reuse of character models.
  • Another one has an argument between two female Grunts in Po Town, which culminates as another lampshade concerning why everyone is referred to as "Grunt".
• Serial Escalation: Inverted. Unlike previous evil teams, these guys aren't out to conquer the world or control some powerful Legendary Pokémon. They're just out to steal whatever they can get their hands on, particularly money, while also just being dicks to Trainers going through the island challenge.
• Strange Salute: The mooks pose before battle by crossing their arms across their chest and then curling them to their sides to gesticulate a skull and crossbones.
• Supermodel Strut: The female grunts walk while swaying their hips from side to side, similar to Plumeria.
• Trash of the Titans: They've taken residence in a mansion, and the interior is a mess, with garbage and graffiti everywhere and a fallen chandelier blocking one of the stairwells. Only Plumeria keeps her room clean.
• True Companions: Probably the thing that differentiates Skull the most from any other villainous team: They're all struggling due to shortcomings or failures in life, and have banded together to try and get the respect they believe society owes them. In the process, they, along with Guzma and Plumeria, form an extremely tight bond to the point they don't disband after reforming, instead refocusing their efforts on positive contributions to society.
• The Unreveal: Their origins are said to have originated as a group formed around one of the Kahunas, who was then struck down by one of the island deities. The identity of the Kahuna and original leader of Team Skull is left unmentioned beyond that.
• Valley Girl: Two female grunts in Po Town talk like this.
• Visual Pun: The goofy "arms curled towards hips" thing the grunts do is supposed to be their arms and body mimicking the shape of a cartoon skull◊. The white saltire on their shirts also makes it look like a skull and crossbones.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: The grunts sport these on a loss.
• Would Hurt a Child: Or at least, Would Steal From And Kidnap Children. Team Skull at one point steals a Yungoos from a preschooler, and later, Plumeria kidnaps Lillie to bring her back to the Aether Foundation's headquarters (although Lillie agrees to go with Plumeria in order to protect the other children who were with her at the time). Albeit it's notable that Plumeria is very regretful about the whole thing later on, she followed orders but was against the whole plan.
• Yakuza: Very clearly the type of thing Guzma wants to invoke with the team, but also very clearly not the case, with the difference between them and the real Yakuza - Team Rocket - being shown clearly in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Zerg Rush: Sort of. At Ancient Poni Path, before you head into Vast Poni Canyon, you have to fight a lone female Grunt and seemingly a single male Grunt. However, in the overworld, there are five other male Grunts, and the male Grunt has five Pokémon, giving the impression that all five male Grunts are either all fighting you or they just let the one Grunt do all the work. This is likely due to the lack of the Horde Trainer battles that were present in the Hoenn remakes.

Guzma (Unmarked Spoilers)

Guzma (グズマ guzuma)

"Wanna see what destruction looks like?
Here it is in human form - it's your boy Guzma!"

Voiced by: Doug Erholtz (Pokémon Masters - EN), Tatsuhiro Kikuchi (Pokémon Masters - JP)

The leader of Team Skull. He's a fierce and merciless battler, and seems to have a past with Professor Kukui. He is a Bug-type specialist, until the Battle Tree, where he diversifies his team into Poison-types and Dark-types.

---

• Abusive Parents: A house on Route 2, his childhood home, hints that Guzma may have had a very troublesome childhood. It's implied that his father beat him, but Guzma later retaliated and ran away from home afterward. His father says "I tried to set that boy straight, but instead, I was the one who got beat." And then there's the bag of bent and broken golf clubs found in the same house. What makes it more unsettling is that the very lady he follows orders from is an abusive mother herself. Further hints that he may have been abused as a child can be seen in his catchphrase about being "the hated boss who beats you down and beats you down and never lets up" (which could be a Freudian Slip about what his father did to him), and the way he slips into third-person and screams "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!", which combined with his Always Second Best status, further looks like sublimated emotional abuse.
• Achievements in Ignorance: When he shows up at Team Rainbow Rocket's Castle to rescue Lusamine, he unintentionally causes two Rainbow Rocket Grunts to tell him where she is.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: All of mention or implication of Guzma's Freudian Excuse is cut out in Ultra Sun and Moon, making his motivation and driving factor in the games to be a lot simpler as a result.
• Always Second Best: Not even that. Almost all of the trophies in his childhood bedroom are bronze, so he was always third best. He also has a single silver trophy, meaning that the one time he actually got second best was an accomplishment for him.
• At Arm's Length: He does this to two Rainbow Rocket Grunts, holding his hands against their faces while they futilely swing their arms at him.
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed. He isn't necessarily murderous as far as the story goes, but he's definitely violent, irritable, and aggressive to the point of being mentally unhinged.
  "You wanna know what I do when some machine messes up? The first thing I do is give it a nice hard smack! I mean, most of the time I smash it to pieces, but hey, what can you do? (donning a Slasher Smile) Now let's see if I can't fix you!"
• Badass Boast: His section's establishing quote.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: According to Plumeria, he likes Lusamine because she's the only adult who ever seemed to acknowledge his strength.
• Benevolent Boss: Even if it isn't as immediately obvious with him as it is with Plumeria, Guzma does care about his underlings. If you speak to him in the postgame of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he'll tell you that he's working hard to become stronger so that he can make sure no one messes with his "homies". This is also the reason he formed Team Skull in the first place, as a means to give fellow social outcasts a place to call home.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's just as much of a Large Ham as the rest of his team, but unlike them, he's actually a threat.
• Big Bad: The Leader of Team Skull, and as such, he acts as one for the first part of the game. Later subverted, as he is actually The Dragon to Lusamine, who operates the much more competent and just as villainous Aether Foundation.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Played with. He certainly acts like he wants to be feared by everyone despite not being the biggest threat to Alola, and there may be a scared, broken boy with self-esteem issues underneath his loud, boastful attitude. But he's still a hostile, destructive gang leader who's out to do as much damage as he can and is perfectly willing to back up his threats.
• Big Brother Instinct: Seems to feel this way about the protagonist and Lillie in the Rainbow Rocket storyline. He joins you in a battle against two Rainbow Rocket Grunts, telling them before that "(even though his team is disbanded, he still has things) he can't let go of and won't let anybody mess with". He also holds off other Grunts to allow the protagonist to take on the leaders of the Rainbow Rocket relatively unbothered.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Of all of the villain team leaders (with the exception of Giovanni, as he was a Gym Leader ^note and even then, he doesn't have a full team of Ground-types in Pokémon Yellow as well as a Villain Team Leader), he is the only one who carries a team full of a certain type of Pokémon. In Guzma's case, he specializes in Bug-type Pokémon. Fittingly, this may be because his original aspirations were to be a Trial Captain, the Alolan equivalent of Gym Leaders, and his dedication to a single-type team is a holdover from those dashed hopes. His favorite Pokémon and ace is Golisopod, a giant isopod that stands taller than him. His room in the Shady House has a large pile of Buginium-Z Crystals, one of which the player can take for themselves. The Poké War Games event in Masters even has him paired up with Buzzwole.
• Bling of War: He wears various bits of jewelry, such as a gold watch and a Team Skull pendant, which he takes off after disbanding Team Skull.
• Breaking Old Trends: Unlike every other villainous team's boss who would keep (or attempt to keep) some manner of refinement when interacting with the player or other non-player characters, Guzma is casual from the moment we see him, his posture and first lines fitting in with his rebellious nature.
• Break the Haughty: In Sun and Moon, when you find him in Ultra Space, he realizes Lusamine has gone too far when both are stuck in Ultra Space, and he gets possessed by a Nihilego when he cockily tried to capture it. By his own words, his body and mind were driven out of his control, and he experienced fear for the first time. Meanwhile, Lusamine is just on another level and was gone for him, and it's implied he tried to talk her down, but it didn't work.
• Broken Ace: If the trophies in his parents' house on Route 2 are any indication, then he most certainly is. Not only that, he had actually trained his Pokémon since he was younger during his island trial, and he also failed at becoming a Trial Captain, feeling like society cheated him when this happened. These are the reasons to why he formed Team Skull, as he wanted to take in people that weren't that different from him, and despite being The Ace and The Leader of the team, he is a broken ace one at the end of the day. Fortunately, by the end of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he works to amend his issues.
• The Brute: Views himself as such, being a burly looking man who calls himself "destruction in human form".
• Calling the Old Man Out: Post-game in Ultra Sun And Moon, he has the audacity to visit his old home on Route 2, and beat his father in a battle.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Introduces himself as "destruction in human form."
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "The hated boss who beats you down and beats you down and never lets up... Yeah. Big bad Guzma is here!"
  • "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!", which he says whenever he loses a battle.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Both to Giovanni in Red and Blue and Archer in Gold and Silver.
  • In Giovanni's case, they both lead criminal organizations and specialize in one specific type, and in the end, they both disband their gangs in order to focus on becoming stronger trainers. But while Giovanni is the Big Bad of his game, Guzma is The Dragon to the real big bad, Lusamine. And while Giovanni is training because he intends to reassemble Team Rocket someday, Guzma is able to move on and is training in order to better himself. In addition, Guzma is heavily implied to have suffered rather nasty parental abuse as a child while Giovanni himself, while not explicitly shown to be physically abusive to his son, has still been shown to be a terrible father towards Silver up to and including abandoning his son after the events of the first games.
  • In Archer's case, both of them have shown Undying Loyalty to their respective leaders (Archer to Giovanni and Guzma to Lusamine). But unlike Archer who takes the helm of interim leadership of Team Rocket after Giovanni's disappearance and is The Dragon turned Big Bad, Guzma leads the Team Skull since day one, but is simply the decoy Big Bad and is The Dragon to Lusamine, like the aforementioned example with Giovanni.
  • In both cases above, Giovanni and Archer are dressed in high-class outfits befitting their businessmen nature, while Guzma is dressed in a more casual, gangster-like outfit.
• Cool Shades: Guzma wears an asymmetrical pair of sunglasses on his forehead. He swaps them out for a symmetrical pair after his Heel–Face Turn.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Sports these, likely to reflect his angry and intimidating demeanor.
• The Dragon: He is one to Lusamine, the president of the Aether Foundation.
• The Dog Bites Back: It's implied his Start of Darkness occurred when he finally delivered a return beatdown to his abusive father.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: And this is despite his mother being an abusive parent. If you visit his house in the postgame, his mother will say that while she heard all sorts of rumors that her Guzma was up to no good, she knew they were "all lies", implying he couldn't bring himself to fess up to her.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Despite being the leader of a gang, seeing himself as "destruction in human form", and wanting to vandalize Alola, he's the only villainous team leader to not plan to Take Over the World, or do something to it. Reinforced by Episode RR in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where he helps the player against the Multiversal Conqueror Rainbow Rocket.
  • He also feels Lusamine's Omnicidal Maniac tendencies are going too far, at the end of Sun and Moon.
  • :In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he also doesn't seem to take backstabbing well, as Faba did to Lusamine.
• Evil Is Hammy: He's very loud and expressive, to say the least.
• Evil Laugh: While it's not heard or shown in his dialogue, one of his animations before battle is a maniacal laugh.
• Foil:
  • To Kukui. Guzma mentions that both of them failed at becoming Trial Captains, but instead of doing something good with his talents like Kukui, Guzma went crazy and created Team Skull instead.
  • To Plumeria, his second-in-command. Guzma is loud and gets angrily very easily, while Plumeria always keeps her cool. While Guzma happily goes along with Lusamine's plan (until the events in Ultra Space), Plumeria is against kidnapping Lillie and regrets being a part of it. She apologizes sincerely for her actions and has nothing but nice things to say to the protagonist. When the protagonist meets Guzma after Team Skull's disbandment in Sun and Moon, he gives them his lucky Dawn Stone while refusing to call it a gesture of apology.
• Foreshadowing:
  • His encounter and battle themes both contain samples of the Aether Foundation theme, which hints towards who he answers to.
  • Inverted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. He knows Hala's grandson, Hau, and that he's approximately the same age as the main character. Which makes more sense since, after his Sun and Moon postgame fight, Hala is revealed to have been his former mentor.
• Freudian Excuse: He's implied to be as violent and aggressive as he is because of a rough childhood, particularly because his parents abused him (moreso his father) until he snapped, beat his father up, and ran away from home. Afterwards, he tried to become a Trial Captain, but failed. This combination led Guzma to see society as the source of his problems and drove him to try and take revenge on Alola as a whole.
• Good Costume Switch: Sort of. After disbanding Team Skull, he swaps out his sunglasses, ditches the necklace, removes his tattoos, and crosses out the Team Skull logo on his jacket with red paint. The resulting look is largely unchanged except for the removal of all Team Skull motifs.
  • He's back to his original look for his Masters appearance, despite having been through his character development.
• Guyliner: Wears dark gray eyeshadow.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Guzma is known for getting angry very easily, and expresses it physically. When you sit in his chair, you'll notice that the arms of the chair have wear and tear from him slamming his fists on it angrily. He'll also freak out and yell at himself for losing at you constantly.
• The Heavy: The Team Skull goons who serve as the most regular obstacles to the player are all working for him, and once the player arrives on Ula'ula Island, Guzma takes (negative) notice of them and becomes a Recurring Boss. He's not the Big Bad, but he is the game's most frequent obstacle.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • In the post-game, he disbands Team Skull, with his title changing from "Team Skull Boss Guzma" to "Pokémon Trainer Guzma". After being defeated, he leaves with Hala to train and become stronger.
  • More so in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Guzma helps the protagonist take down Team Rainbow Rocket, primarily by keeping an eye on the entrance to their castle and intercepting grunts who pass by while the protagonist investigates the interior, and becomes one of the potential challengers after the player character has become the Champion, meaning that Guzma has cleaned up his act.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite his bad attitude and short temper, Guzma created Team Skull not only as a way to defy tradition and more of a way to give a place to those who had felt as if they had no place in Alola or felt as if they failed their goals in life, giving them solidarity over isolation.
• The fact he's a Benevolent Boss despite his poor attitude, anger issues, and inferiority complex also speaks a lot to how he views his grunts more as people to look out for than actual grunts.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Plumeria suggests that despite how much Guzma rants about his hatred of many of Alola's traditions, he still cares deeply about his homeland and hence was willing to jump into another dimension to try to protect it. She admits though that Guzma himself may not realize this.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Yes, Guzma is the leader of Team Skull, which are all a bunch of delinquents that plan to cause damage to Alola, with him being the most competent of them all. However, the reason he took all of the Grunts into Team Skull, including Plumeria, is because he knew how bad they must have felt after they failed to make an impact to the society they are a part of, and felt cheated by them. Deep down, all that Guzma wants is for him and the people he sympathizes with to be recognized, though of course, he will not let the positive side of him be seen by the heroes.
• I Gave My Word: Defeating him in the Shady House has him actually give back the Yungoos that Team Skull kidnapped. Likewise, defeating him in Aether Paradise has him let you through, letting you battle Lusamine.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Even after enduring failure after failure, Guzma just wants to be treated as someone important. This is how Lusamine uses him so effectively as her enforcer: She treats him as if he's special and the only one she can rely on for getting a job done, which keeps him loyal all the way until he enters Ultra Space and deems it too much for him, at which point he also realizes that Lusamine doesn't care about him or anyone that isn't the Ultra Beasts.
• Incoming Ham: He makes his first appearance by loudly announcing "Greetings, cowering public!" and introducing himself as "the hated boss who beats you down and beats you down and never lets up" and as "destruction in human form."
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: For all of his fearmongering and bravado, it's implied that his less than stellar upbringing combined with his failure to become a Trial Captain left him with some confidence issues. Team Skull is his way of trying to compensate for them and lash out.
• Irony: Being a gang boss who's a Large Ham and has a tendency to break technology by hitting it, it's made apparent that he's smarter than your average Team Rainbow Rocket Grunt (i.e: "experienced" Mooks that are part of The Mafia), and Faba, as he has an incredulous look as a reaction to the latter revealing to Lusamine that he backstabbed her just to further his own career.
• It's All About Me: Played with. Guzma formed Team Skull as a way of lashing out after failing to become a Trial Captain and blames society instead of moving on. Though given the implications he was abused in the past, the trials were probably not the only factor, and his underlings were all kids who couldn't make a living as trainers and are also blaming society for their troubles, so Team Skull's ambitions aren't just for him alone.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Settles into this in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, after his Heel–Face Turn. In the post-game, Guzma thanks you for saving the world from Necrozma and appears to actually get along a bit with Hau, the grandson of Hala, who was Guzma's former mentor. Likewise, Guzma helps you in Episode RR by taking down a pair of Rainbow Rocket Grunts, and despite claiming that he did it because they were getting on his nerves, he later reassures the player character that he's got their back by holding the entrance and holding off said pair of Grunts. He's also helping the player character because Team Rainbow Rocket kidnapped Lusamine, the only person who truly recognized his strength, and he wanted to return the favor by saving her.
  Guzma: Maybe when you bring out the best in others, it helps you find the best in yourself too, huh?
• Large and in Charge: Even while slouching, Guzma is visibly one of the tallest characters in the game, and his bravado as the leader of Team Skull isn't for show. His height is even made note of on a few occasions; according to official character sheets, his height is anywhere from 6'6" to 7'2" (the variation presumably due to Sun and Moon having most adults have similar heights).
• The Leader: Of Team Skull.
• Meaningful Name: The Guzmania genus is part of the plant family known as Bromeliads, many species of which are notable for being home to micro-ecosystems, and Team Skull gives off much more of a casual and familial tone than previous villainous teams. More specifically, Guzmania bromeliads flourish in hot, humid climates, such as tropical places like Alola.
• Mentor Archetype: During Masters, he unwillingly becomes this to Liza when she asks him to help make her stronger and more confident.
• Musical Spoiler: His theme actually glitches out at several points, playing a snippet of the Aether Foundation Leitmotif.
• '90s Anti-Hero: Seems to turn into this at the end of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. His "heroism" part is played up in Episode RR where he describes himself as a "nobody" before teaming up with the player against Rainbow Rocket Grunts. Besides, his design and traits had already mimicked many of those examples in the genres, and he has the speech of such.
• Noble Demon: The entire reason Guzma formed the team was to lash out at a society he felt cheated by. So he took in a bunch of weak trainers and other failures that knew how hard and unfair the life of a trainer can be, and gave them a home and a purpose.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In his first appearance, Guzma attempted to pull this card between himself and Professor Kukui, as they both failed to become Trial Captains in their youth. But Kukui points out that they are indeed different, because unlike Guzma, Kukui didn't fail to become a Trial Captain, he just chose to do something else, like become a professor.
• #1 Dime: In Sun and Moon, he carries around a Dawn Stone that he received after his first-ever victory as a good luck charm, even past the point where it's become apparent that it hasn't been very lucky for him where it counts. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon seem to replace it with a Grip Claw.
• Optional Boss: He can be challenged to a match when you visit his childhood home after becoming Champion in Sun and Moon. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he's instead one of the Title Defense challengers you can battle.
• Personality Powers: His signature Pokémon is Golisopod; a cowardly weakling that became big and strong, but underneath its fearsome appearance is still the same coward it always was.
• Pride: He thinks himself the strongest trainer in all of Alola to the point he has Team Skull take all the Buginium Z they could find and stash it in their base, and having that idea shattered by losing to the player repeatedly only drives up his frustration with both them and himself.
• Put on a Bus:
  • In the postgame of Sun and Moon, he goes to train with Hala. He comes back briefly on the Battle Tree for Moon, where you can face him off or team up with him.
  • Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where he can instead be found at the trailer park outside Haina Desert, as well as being a potential Title Defense challenger.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: His bravado isn't just for show; he's easily a very strong battler, and definitely the strongest member of Team Skull. When you confront him in Aether Paradise, he's already defeated Gladion^note who at this point uses a Golbat, which is a Flying-type and thus should have had a major advantage over his primarily Bug-type team and is ready to rip you apart. Also, his team when you battle him in the post-game is on par with the Elite Four, and he can also be found amongst many strong, fightable (and recruitable) trainers in the Battle Tree.
• Rebel Relaxation: He crouches down while battling rather than standing up.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: After disbanding Team Skull, his attitude still hasn't changed one bit. He even makes a point of telling you he'll never change. Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where he mellows out by the end of the game.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once it becomes clear just how far Lusamine's fallen off the deep end, he decides he really wants no further part in her plans. He can't actually go anywhere given where he is at the time, though.
• Second Place Is for Losers: One of the causes in Guzma's descent to villainy is found in his trophy collection: he has a single silver trophy and the rest after that are bronze.
• Shock and Awe: Vikavolt replaces his Ariados as the other very slow Bug-type in the remakes, giving his team not only a secondary special attacker other than Masquerain but it also helps his team handle Flying-types more efficiently.
• Signature Mon:
  • Golisopod. When you infiltrate Team Skull's hideout, you learn that it's his favorite Pokémon. Unlike most examples of this trope, he sends it out immediately, because its ability, Emergency Exit, would be useless if he saved it for last.
    • Also makes more sense when you consider both have a case of Inferiority Superiority Complex.
  • The Poké War Games event in Masters puts more emphasis towards his focus on brute force by pairing him up with Buzzwole.
  • In the Battle Tree, his team diversifies a bit, but can still include Golisopod, as well as Mega Pinsir.
• Slasher Smile: He has a big grin on his face as he laughs and threatens to beat down the player in every encounter.
• Sore Loser: He doesn't take losing to a child over and over again very well.
• Start of Darkness: The formation of Team Skull was the result of his being rejected from being a Trial Captain after running away from home to escape his abusive father.
• Tattooed Crook: He has tattoos of Team Skull's emblem on his forearms.
• Third-Person Person: He slips into this when he loses a battle. After all, he's probably used to hearing himself berated for failure this way.
  "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!"
• Tin Tyrant: The Poké War Games event in Masters gives him Buzzwole-themed armor.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Compared to his role in the original games, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon shows him facing you as one of the potential opponents for the title of Champion.
  • He even helps you take back Aether Paradise and rescue Lusamine from Giovanni and spends a good chunk of Episode RR holding back two Rainbow Rocket Grunts.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tapu Cocoa, if one of the clues needed to get through the Shady House are any indication.
• Tsundere: He might be a big bad brute with anger issues who comes across as intimidating or even scary but he's also a Benevolent Boss and a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who cares about his underlings and his region. Furthermore, he challenges the player to one last battle at Hau'Oli beach in which he gives him/her his good luck charm, a Dawn Stone as a token of his appreciation and gratitude to them. His and Plumeria's event in Masters reveals him to be this in his interactions with Scottie/Bettie and especially Liza, who has adopted him as her mentor. Despite his protests to Liza calling him "master," it's clear by the end of the story that he cares about her and wants to see her develop as a trainer in her own right.
• Walking Spoiler: Knowing too much about him reveals that he is Lusamine's second-in-command during the events of Ultra Space, and that Team Skull was collaborating with the Aether Foundation behind the scenes the whole time.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: During the Team Rainbow Rocket arc, when confronted by multiple Team Rocket Grunts, Guzma simply attacks and restrains the trainers themselves rather than waiting for them to bring out their Pokémon.
• Worthy Opponent: Averted and Played for Drama. In the post-game, he's chastised by Hala for only recognizing his own strength, and his failure to see the strength of others is what keeps dragging him down. Indeed, his go-to "Guzma! What is wrong with you?!" indicates he sees the player's victories as personal failures and nothing else.
• Younger Than They Look: Despite his white hair, Guzma seems to be a lot younger than he looks, probably in his early twenties. Plumeria's wording that Lusamine was the only adult that ever acknowledged his strength, rather than the only person, and his parents and Hala referring to him as a "young man", further reinforce this, and it's mentioned that he failed at becoming a Trial Captain, and 20 is the cutoff age for Trial Captains. In case this is true, he's likely the youngest villainous team leader in the main games, moreso than Cyrus.

Plumeria (Plumeri)

Plumeria / Plumeri (プルメリ purumeri)

Voiced by: Michelle Ruff (Pokémon Masters - EN), Ai Kaneta (Pokémon Masters - JP)

The sole admin of Team Skull, she's described as the "Big Sister" of the gang and looks out for the younger members while keeping them in line.

---

• Ambiguously Brown: She looks like a Gyaru Girl, and her fashion sense certainly evokes the fashion style, leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not her tan skin is natural or just the result of makeup- the white on her eyes is her eyeshadow, as shown when she wears it less excessively during the post-game.
• Anime Hair: Pink and yellow hair drawn into four long strands, pink in the front and yellow in the back.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Her role as the admin of Team Skull is implied to be the result of being the strongest next to Guzma, since she doesn't contribute much aside from being a strong trainer, and looking out for her grunts. In Sun and Moon, she's shown to be a strong enough trainer to challenge the Champion. Though to be fair, Team Skull is far from an organized crime organization in need of much else.
• Benevolent Boss: While Plumeria is not the actual leader of Team Skull, she's the admin, the second-in-command to Guzma, and she cares about her grunts, treating them like her siblings. She also has a Golbat which evolves into Crobat later in the game. This is reinforced when she mentions that you "picking on" the grunts is her Berserk Button.
• Big Sister Instinct: She is fiercely protective of her "cute, dumb brothers and sisters". This is the reason she initiates the first confrontation with the player, who has dispatched several Skull mooks by then with little effort.
• Blow You Away: She owns a Golbat, later a Crobat.
• Cool Big Sis: Fittingly for a group partially-based on Japanese Delinquents, she serves as this to younger Team Skull members. She is in a sense everything the grunts want to be: intelligent, powerful and "cool." Even her room in the headquarters is organized and well-kept compared to the mess that the Grunts and Guzma make of their rooms (in fact, if she greets the player upon them logging in to Masters during the morning, she mentions that she spends all day making it so tidy. Yet despite being so objectively "superior" she sees the grunts' flaws as making them cute and deserving of her attention rather than scorn, which just makes her more beloved by them.
• Dark Action Girl: She's a skilled battler with strong Pokémon and works for the resident evil team.
• Death Glare: Her pre-battle animation has her sport one, and due to her yellow eyes, it's actually quite unnerving.
• The Dragon: To Guzma, though it's subverted as it turns out Guzma is this to Lusamine and she implicitly quits after having to kidnap Lillie.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She did not like kidnapping Lillie one bit.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: She wears lots of eye makeup - dark eyeliner and eyeshadow, and white eyeshadow - applied all around her eyes. Fittingly enough, she gets rid of the white makeup after reforming, making it less excessive.
• Face of a Thug: Plumeria has one heck of a Death Glare, wears a constant scowl, works for Team Skull, and generally looks like the kind of person you don't want to meet in a dark alley. However, she's actually fairly pleasant with a fierce Big Sister Instinct, and the only reason she initially has a bone to pick with you is because you were beating on the grunts. She's also one of the least antagonistic villains in the series.
• Foil: To Guzma, her boss. Guzma is a Large Ham with a Hair-Trigger Temper, while Plumeria is always cool and collected. While Guzma happily goes along with Lusamine's plan (until the events in Ultra Space), Plumeria is against kidnapping Lillie and regrets being a part of it. She apologizes sincerely for her actions and has nothing but nice things to say to the protagonist. When the protagonist meets Guzma after Team Skull's disbandment, he gives them his lucky Dawn Stone while refusing to call it a gesture of apology.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Her room in the Team Skull HQ has two Pokémon dolls on her bed.
  • Elaborated on in Masters. The event that introduces her has a sub-episode where the protagonist accompanies her on a trip through town, and she's constantly getting sidetracked by cute things, in particular a shop selling stuffed animals.
• Good Costume Switch: After Team Skull is disbanded, she removes her white eye shadow and tattoo, and dons a Salazzle-themed bandana and pair of pants◊.
  • She's back to her Team Skull look in Masters, despite that version of her clearly having been through her Character Development from the main games.
• Gyaru Girl: She has pink and blonde hair, and accents her eyes with white makeup. Her design is clearly inspired from ganguro style, further exemplified by the baggy clothing fashion that the entire organization wears.
• Hartman Hips: Her hips are quite wider than her body, and she tends to walk and show this off.
• Heel–Face Turn: Turns over a new leaf after Team Skull is disbanded, albeit even while she's still with Team Skull she is notably less antagonistic than other members and outright against things like kidnapping.
• Hidden Depths: Her Title Defense defeat dialogue implies that she's not as confident in herself as she puts up. Indeed, this hints as to why she may have joined Team Skull.
  Plumeria: "I failed again... like I always do. I promised myself I wouldn't! I told myself I would never fail again!"
  • Further, in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon we learn her favorite Pokémon is Bounsweet. She has a desire to watch over "cute, dumb" things and Bounsweet is notably fairly defenseless and while often harassed by other Pokémon, it tends to not be very good at communicating it needs help. This is likely why she is the Cool Big Sis to the grunts and in turn, why they all adore her.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: She's a lot more level-headed and in control than her superior. Makes one wonder how Guzma got her to join...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • While she is a member of Team Skull, she is beloved by the grunts as a caring big-sister figure. She's also genuinely remorseful for her part in kidnapping Lillie, and personally apologizes to her for it.
  • She has an additional moment in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon for her kindness to shine. She doesn't really approve of kidnapping Lillie, but she actually respects Lillie for being able to stand up to herself when she and another grunt came by to take her, instead of accusing her of being a thief like the originals did.
• Meaningful Name: Plumeria flowers are not only pink and yellow in color, they're also symbols of family and believed to provide shelter to ghosts and demons, fitting her status as the "big sister" of the team.
• Nice Girl: Heavily downplayed until the climax of the game, but it's there. Plumeria notably lacks some of the antagonism typical of villain team admins. She only battles the player character because they had defeated a bunch of her grunts, who she loves and treats them like her siblings. Later, she apologizes to Lillie for kidnapping her and mentions she wasn't on board with it at all, and she has nothing but nice things to say to Lillie and to the player before they go to save Guzma and Lusamine. When she appears as a challenger at the Pokémon League, it's hinted that she disliked knocking a bunch of Pokémon out to reach the Champion and is very sensitive to letting other people down; plus, her Golbat's evolution to a Crobat (which is only achieved through high friendship) implies she does love her Pokémon.
• Number Two: The second-in-command of Team Skull, and The Dragon to Guzma. Strangely, they only interact once, and this is in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Only Sane Woman: More cool-headed than Guzma, and the only member of the team to not be a Large Ham, nor gesture while she speaks.
• Optional Boss: Appears as one of the potential challengers for the player's title as champion.
• Perpetual Frowner: She never smiles in any of your interactions with her, not counting the epic Slasher Smile she gives you in the Demo. She finally cracks a genuine smile in the ending of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Averted further in Masters.
• Poisonous Person: Specializes in Poison-type Pokémon, and gives the player a Poisonium Z.
• Self-Deprecation: Like Team Skull as a whole, she doesn't hide her self-esteem issues. She automatically assumes that Lillie won't and shouldn't forgive her for kidnapping her, and has no problem with it because she believes it's deserved. Lillie, of course, does actually forgive her.
• Signature Headgear: Plumeria wears two skull-shaped hair clips, with her four bunches of hair going through the eye portions.
• Signature Mon: Salazzle. She even wears a bandana and pants modeled after it after her Heel–Face Turn.
• Supermodel Strut: Like most of the older, notably attractive females in the game, she has quite a bit of hip movement when she strides forward.
• Surrounded by Idiots: An odd example. She has a low opinion of her grunts' smarts, but rather than it annoying her, she finds it oddly endearing. She pretty much thinks of them as her cute dumb younger siblings that she, as their Cool Big Sis, needs to watch over.
• Tattooed Crook: She has a tattoo bearing Team Skull's emblem on her midriff. She removes it after Team Skull is disbanded.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon reveals that she shares Guzma's preference for Tapu Cocoa.
• Uncatty Resemblance: In the post-game, Plumeria drops the skull motif and wears Salazzle-themed bandana and pants.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite being responsible for Lillie's kidnapping, she's nowhere to be found when Hau, Gladion, and the player raid Aether Paradise. Perhaps justified when she explains later how much she regretted being a part of the whole thing to begin with, presumably she took the first opportunity to leave the place.
• Would Hurt a Child: Subverted. She does kidnap Lillie as part of Team Skull's plan and leaves her in Aether Paradise, but is resentful for doing this and apologizes to her for this before they enter Vast Poni Canyon.

Gladion (Gladio)

Gladion / Gladio (グラジオ gurajio)

Voiced by: Alan Lee (Pokémon Masters - EN), Kōki Uchiyama (Pokémon Masters - JP)

An Enforcer of Team Skull. A young man who places strength in battle above everything.

---

• Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. Gladion in Ultra Sun and Moon doesn't run away due to the actions from his mother but rather out of a desire to get strong enough to protect his family. He does this by effectively abandoning his sister.
• Adapted Out: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, his Sneasel was switched out for a Zorua.
• Agent Scully: Implied. He gives you one of the flutes needed to awaken the Legendary Pokémon, but doesn't seem to believe in the existence of it himself.
• Anti-Hero: He wants to save Lillie from being kidnapped and to stop Lusamine from possibly destroying the planet. He also isn't the nicest guy ever.
• Anti-Villain: Despite allying himself with Team Skull, he doesn't seem to particularly care for their goals and mostly just does what he's told. He even warns the player and Hau to be careful of them at some point. He becomes an Anti-Hero after defecting from Team Skull entirely.
• All the Other Reindeer: Because Gladion is hired muscle for Team Skull, the grunts are quick to remind him that he is not a real member of the team, and so they don't respect him. Though they do recognize that he's a stronger trainer than a lot of them and will back down from a fight with the player after learning that you beat Gladion.
• Aloof Ally: After Lillie gets kidnapped by Team Skull, Gladion teams up with the Player Character and Hau to rescue her from the Aether Foundation. Despite that, he still struggles with opening up to them, even explicitly blocking them from entering a room containing information about what exactly Type: Null is.
• Artificial Brilliance: In his first battle in the Ultra games, his Zorua is disguised as his Zubat. The two Pokémon don't share weaknesses and Zorua's Dark-type makes it immune to Zubat's Psychic weakness, easily capable of catching unaware Trainers off-guard. Less so later on, however, as Zoroark is later seen disguising as Type: Null and Lucario, both of whom share a Fighting weakness with it.
• Artistic Age: He's older than the protagonist, but is shorter than his younger sister Lillie. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon and most spin off material such as the anime seem to scale him up to make his age more obvious.
• Benevolent Boss: Contrasting the rest of Gladion's cold and aloof persona, he's very compassionate towards his Pokémon, especially towards Type: Null, and continues the trend in previous generations of owning Pokémon that only evolve with high friendship ratings. To wit, his team composition in your battle on Mount Lanakila sports no less than three such examples: Crobat, Lucario, and his ace Silvally. He even takes over as president of the Aether Foundation in Sun and Moon and changes it for the better in the post-game.
• Berserk Button: In the Pokémon Masters story event "Mechanized - Love and Solitude," he abhors the thought of a scientist trying to do research to a Pokémon that doesn't belong to them, since it reminds him of Nebby and Type: Null being subjected to horrible experiments. However, in this case, the scientist is Colress wanting to research Magearna, even though it's a well-known fact that he's not a Mad Scientist and he just was obsessed out of the thrill for the chance. It still ended up with Gladion angrily lashing out and nearly fighting him until Lusamine intervened.
• Big Brother Instinct: Toward Lillie. Even if their relationship was a bit strained after he left her with Lusamine, Gladion cares for her a lot and quickly performs a Heel–Face Turn to team up with the player and Hau to rescue her.
• Birds of a Feather:
  • He states that this is how he sees his relationship with Null, since both were created by Lusamine in a way and forced to be what she wanted them to be.
  • In Masters, Hau seems to think both Gladion and Lisia are very similar only because of Gladion's usual battle pose looking similar to her contest pose. Gladion at first protests he's not trying to please fans with his pose, but then Lisia comes up to them and comments his pose needs a bit of work for people to see him better. He happily takes the advice to heart.
• Blood Knight: His main concern is becoming a strong battler, and even after Lusamine is dealt with, he feels that the best way to thank the player character is through giving them a good battle.
• Calling Parents by Their Name:
  • While he never denies that Lusamine is his mother, he almost never refers to her with that title - he either calls her by her name or, even more jarringly, just "the president". It's yet another point of contrast between himself and Lillie, who always addresses Lusamine as "Mother" despite their strained relationship.
  • Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where Gladion does address Lusamine as Mother, both to her face and to other people. This is likely a reflection of how their relationship in that story is better, as Lusamine isn't quite so horrible.
• Character Tics: Covering his face with his right hand while clutching his right side with the left. He switches hands in his pre-battle animation. May cross into Chewing the Scenery.
• Clothing Damage: The rips in his clothes are apparently a result of Type: Null not knowing its own strength.
• Character Catchphrase: His losing-battle dialogue is "How annoying!"
• Chick Magnet: Implied by the ending credits of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where the majority of the crowd that gathers to see him off is made up of female Aether Foundation employees.
• Chuunibyou: Gladion has many hallmarks of this character type. He's got an angry demeanor and denies being friends with any human characters, is obsessed with strength, poses dramatically during battle, and even gets called out by Hau on acting mysterious just to seem cooler.
• Color Motif: His colors mainly consist of red and black as they are on his outfit and fit his personality. Silvally can also have either the Fire or Dark typing. Both of those types are indicated by Black and Red for colors. This suffers deep contrast to Lusamine and his sister Lillie. He's also one of the best cases of Dark Is Not Evil.
• Cool Boat: Takes command of one with Team Skull livery.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's not as sinister as his black and red Color Motif might suggest, being an Anti-Hero who is determined to stop Lusamine and the Ultra Beasts.
• Death Glare: His eyes narrow when he's particularly angry.
• Deconstruction: Despite being considerably more friendly with Hau and the player character, he still tells the latter to get out when they enter his room, which is a completely realistic response to someone bursting into one's room, unlike typical NPCs in RPGs that don't seem to mind.
• Defrosting Ice King: Downplayed. While he does warm up to the protagonist, he still goes out of his way to state that they aren't really friends.
  • In the Spanish version of the retellings, after battling him at Mount Lanakila, his dialogue suggests that he already considers the player character a friend, but he seems unable to understand why they would do the same for him
• Disappeared Dad: His father Mohn was researching Ultra Beasts, and disappeared during an experiment.
• Easily Forgiven: Averted in Sun and Moon, he never calls Lusamine his mother to her face once, which, all things considered, is entirely justified. However, he does run the Aether foundation in her place at the end of the game, meaning he at least acknowledges Aether's work as important enough to stand in.
• Emo Teen: Design-wise, he dresses in shabby punk clothes that heavily favor the color black, and sports a hairstyle that keeps one eye hidden. Personality-wise he's aloof, cynical, and abrasive. This is even lampshaded in his concept art, with "Gotta express that middle-school arrogance and being emo." Of course, he has a lot of things to be emo about.
• Expy: He shares many characteristics with Silver. They're both rivals to you, both antagonize you as well, they are both mainly concerned about getting stronger, their primary colors are red and black, both use the Zubat and Sneasel lines, they both stole their primary partner Pokémon from a lab, and they're the offspring to the leader of a villainous team. That said, Gladion is nowhere near as much a Jerkass as Silver was before his Character Development.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: He wears two silver cuffs on his left ear.
• Foil:
  • A Spear Counterpart thematically to Lillie. Both have straight blonde hair and green eyes. He wears red and black, places a high value on being strong in Pokémon battles, and works for Guzma and in a degree, Lusamine, the true villain. She wears white with light blue, is not fond of making Pokémon fight in battles at all, and works for Kukui. Gladion even means Sword "Lillie," see below. Makes a bit more sense when it's revealed that they are actually siblings, with Lusamine as their mother. Additionally, both stole Pokémon from their mother in order to rescue them from the experimentation of the Foundation.
  • He's also one to Hau in terms of their personalities. Gladion's pretty put off by the way Hau can stay upbeat and cheerful even after losing a battle, while even Hau notes how overly serious and hard to get along with Gladion is.
• Foreshadowing
  • Unlike Plumeria and Guzma, Gladion's theme sounds nothing like the Team Skull theme, hinting to his status as an outsider.
  • It also shouldn't come as a surprise that he's related to Lillie and Lusamine considering they all share the same hair and eye color.
• Get Out!: If you visit him in his motel room, this is all he has to say.
• Good is Not Nice: Gladion is on the side of good, but he's still a pretty grumpy person.
• Grade-School C.E.O.: He's not much older than the protagonist, yet he becomes the acting president of the Aether Foundation in Sun and Moon while Lusamine is undergoing treatment in Kanto. Faba is not pleased, try as he might to hide it.
• Happily Adopted: In Pokémon Masters, he's tricked by his mother into revealing his true feelings for Magearna and forms a (temporary) Sync Pair with it on the condition that it'll be part of its family until it can find its way to its true family.
• Haughty "Hmph": He does this so often it's practically another catchphrase. And Hau calls him out for this, too.
• Heroic BSoD: He suffers a brief one after losing to Guzma at Aether Paradise, wondering if all the days he spent struggling on his own were all for nothing. After the player character beats Guzma, he recovers.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Gladion genuinely cares for his Pokémon to the point his Type: Null evolves into Silvally out of trust. Turns out he's not that bad of a guy. Additionally, his team includes a Crobat and a Lucario, two Pokémon that only evolve through friendship. Then there's also the fact that the Moon dex entry for Silvally states that Gladion himself gave it that name, and the last four letters for it spells "ally". He is also far more aware of the workings of the Aether Foundation and Team Skull than he initially lets on.
  • In Masters, his sister Lillie notes that she is a mess trying to do any sort of sewing, but Gladion is very good at it.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His blond bangs cover his right eye, a trait shared by his mother.
• Idiot Hair: Gladion has a noticeable cowlick. He's not an idiot per se, but he does have an impulsive streak.
• Irony: Works as an enforcer for Team Skull after he runs away from the Aether Foundation and his mother, both of which support Team Skull financially.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: When he learns that Lillie and Cosmog were captured by Team Skull, he forces you into a battle out of blind rage. After losing, he acknowledges that his actions were irrational and apologizes.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is pretty cold and aloof most of the time (especially to Hau), but he genuinely cares about his Pokémon as noted by the fact his Type: Null (And later, his Crobat and Lucario) all evolve by friendship. And he absolutely loses it when Lillie is kidnapped by Team Skull. In the post-game, with Lusamine in Kanto to find a cure for Nihilego's toxins, Gladion takes over as president and ensures that the Aether Foundation's intended purpose of protecting Pokémon is a reality.
• Lean and Mean: He's quite skinny for someone his age, and his personality is initially far from friendly.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Downplayed. He's fairly levelheaded for the most part, but when he gets angry he makes some pretty rash decisions, like starting a battle with the first person he lays eyes on. Speaking to Wicke during the infiltration on Aether Paradise will further reveal that he'll just jump into things without thinking of the consequences whenever he gets worked up over something.
• Limit Break: His Lucario has a Steelium Z, enabling it to use the Steel-type move Corkscrew Crash.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, his Zoroark gets the Darkium-Z instead, enabling it to use Black Hole Eclipse. This also adds a bit of foreshadowing to Gladion's reaction when Nanu first demonstrates the move to the player, especially since Nanu is the one who later gives Gladion his Z-Ring.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • As he's considered more like hired help than an actual member of Team Skull, he knows little about their plans, only doing what he's told. This means that he has no idea of the connection between Team Skull and the Aether Foundation until Lillie and Nebby have been kidnapped.
  • In the storyline of the Ultra games, Team Rainbow Rocket's attack on Aether Paradise occurs while he is away from Alola, and there is never any indication that he was made aware of it after the fact.
• Made of Iron: Implied. Gladion's Clothing Damage is said to come from his Type: Null attacking him. Type: Null was also built to battle the Ultra Beasts, and it has a decent base Attack stat of 95. He also survived all of those attacks and isn't even shown to have trouble moving.
• Meaningful Name: The Gladiolus genus of flowers is colloquially known as the Sword Lily, fitting his Blood Knight nature and tying him to his sister. It also symbolizes honor and integrity, which ties in to his warning against the player as seen above. In addition, "Gladiolus" has the same word root as "gladiator", which also goes along with Gladion's strive to be a strong battler.
• Milking the Giant Cow: Gladion isn't exactly hammy, but his exaggerated hand gestures more than make up for it.
• Minor Living Alone: He apparently lives alone in one of the roadside motels on Akala Island, with the landlady telling you he's been there for two years. He's moved out by the end of the story, either going back to Aether Paradise in Sun and Moon or temporarily leaving the Alola region altogether in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
• Morality Pet:
  • Type: Null is the most obvious one, but he eventually not only gains regular implied Morality Pet Crobat, but also Lucario and, obviously, Silvally, all of whom evolve through high friendship.
  • Lillie is also one to him, as he defects from Team Skull as soon as he learns they kidnapped her.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: His reaction to Hau saying Lillie looked "fantastic" after her Significant Wardrobe Shift has shades of this. He's okay with Lillie and the protagonist's Ship Tease though.
• Not So Above It All: As frustrated with Hau's antics and unfriendly he may be, Gladion's poses are often dramatic and hammy, which supplimental materials show he's doing it on purpose.
• Optional Boss: Appears as one of the potential challengers for the player's title as champion.
• Perpetual Frowner: Wears a near constant scowl on his face in almost all of his appearances.
• The Power of Friendship: In a case of Gameplay and Story Integration, despite his rough exterior, half of Gladion's team is actually comprised of Pokémon that requires a high level of friendship with their trainer in order to evolve.
• Privileged Rival: Gladion is the son of Aether President Lusamine, and as the older of her two children he's presumably the heir to the foundation. Sun and Moon's postgame sees him taking up the role as president in her absence.
• Punch-Clock Villain: As a hired gun of Team Skull, Gladion doesn't carry out acts of delinquency when he's off the clock. On the flip side, being a hired gun also means Gladion is left out of the loop about Team Skull activities that don't concern him. Like when Team Skull kidnaps Lillie and Nebby and hands them over to the Aether Foundation.
• Put on a Bus: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Since Lusamine is never affected by Nihilego's toxin, she's able to stay in Alola to run the Aether Foundation and so Gladion is the one who leaves on a boat at the end of the game. Wicke tells you in the postgame that he has gone to Kanto and Johto to train. Though it's for a while as he returns strong as a title defense challenger.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His clothing is mostly black with some red accents. Subverted with the "evil" part, though; he's an Anti-Villain at worst.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: His Color Motif is entirely red and black, in contrast to Lillie's blue and white. While Lillie is a very sweet and charming girl who isn't a trainer and dislikes battling, Gladion is a pessimistic, unfriendly boy who loves to battle. Later it's revealed that they are brother and sister.
• The Rival: He is notably the first rival since Silver to not be your friend, although he never quite crosses Jerkass territory. And like Wally, Gladion never gets one of the three starter Pokémon; instead his final Pokémon is Type: Null, although it evolves into Silvally, whose type will always beat your starter's.
• The Runaway: In the original Sun and Moon, his mother Lusamine is extremely controlling and abusive, and Gladion ran away when he couldn't stand it anymore, taking Type: Null with him. Lillie chews him out for just leaving her behind as Lusamine directed all of her abuse towards her from then on.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: When he ran away from home, he took Type:Null with him to spare the designated "beast killer" from further abuse at the Aether Foundation's hands.
• The Sixth Ranger:
  • He isn't an official Team Skull member, just hired muscle.
  • He's also this for the good guys joining later in the game.
• Shoulders of Doom: The hood on his sweatshirt has pointed edges, giving a spiky look to his shoulders.
• Signature Mon: His partner is the mysterious Type: Null, which later evolves into Silvally. Silvally's type will be advantageous against the player's starter. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he also gets a Kanto starter of the same type as the player's chosen starter during his title defense battle but his ace is still Silvally.
• Took a Level in Badass: His team does get stronger, particularly in the Ultra games.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While he has plenty of Pet the Dog moments in Sun and Moon, they're taken to a new level in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. He has many more lines that show how much he cares for Lillie (at one point outright stating that he left home so he could train to become strong enough to protect his sister). When he learns that Team Skull took her back to Aether Paradise, he blames himself for not being around to protect her, whereas the original games had him fiercely berate the player and Hau for not being around in his stead. He even shows a lot more care for Lusamine. He begs her to let him go into the Ultra Wormhole and fight Necrozma himself, because he can't stand the thought of losing her the same way he lost Mohn.
• Tritagonist: Since part of the main plot is dealing with his mother, he qualifies as this after the protagonist and Lillie.
• Tsurime Eyes: His eyes are slanted upwards, giving him an angry look. This is another point of contrast between him and Lillie.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Gladion has some fairly strong Pokémon, but it's clear he lacks experience and training in battling. This is largely the reason he loses.
• Vague Age: He's older than the player, Hau and Lillie, but his exact age is never stated. Considering the other three are eleven, it can be assumed he's anywhere in his early to midteens.
• Voodoo Shark: Unlike in Sun and Moon the reason he ran away from home in Ultra was so he could get stronger to protect the family, which would make sense and be a noble goal... if he hadn't also decided to join Team Skull, effectively working as a hired hand for a gang that spends most of their time causing trouble for other people. By working for a villainous team, he's not only effectively making it harder for other people to oppose the gang, but he's not getting stronger either, as Skull isn't considered by Alola to be anything serious enough to send Trial Captains or Kahunas after.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In Sun and Moon, Lillie chews him out for leaving her alone with Lusamine after taking Type: Null, revealing to him that their mother's abusive behavior got even worse after he left. This is softened in the Ultra retellings, where Lillie tells him that she understands why he left but still wishes he had told her.
• When He Smiles: 99% of the time he's seen scowling or frowning. The few times he does smile, such as when he warms up to you and Hau during their infiltration to Aether Foundation, and after your final battle with him, when he acknowledges that Hau was right about The Power of Friendship and when he sees Lillie happily enjoying herself at your victory celebration are very heartwarming to see as a result. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he has another scene where he smiles. When he's leaving Alola, he was pleasantly surprised when he sees that Lusamine came to bid him farewell.
• Worthy Opponent: Considers the Player Character, and later Hau, this. He even talks the Skull Grunts out of trying to pick a fight with the PC because they'd just end up getting their Pokémon hurt.
• Young and in Charge: After all is said and done in Sun and Moon, Gladion is made the President of Aether in his mother's absence while she recovers, and makes it clear he intends to keep them on the path they initially intended to do.

The Aether Foundation

An organization dedicated to protecting hurt Pokémon, especially those who have been abused by Team Skull, on their own private island. However, there's more to them than it seems, which turns out to be them secretly having been in league with Team Skull the whole time, as their financial backer.

---

Tropes that apply to the whole group

• Ambiguously Brown: The employees have a much darker skin color than most other villainous team grunts.
• Anti-Hero Team: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon the Aether Foundation genuinely wants to help Pokémon and protect the Alola region but will use unsavory methods to do so.
• Arc Villain: The disgruntled employees are the Big Bad of the Alola Villain Arc in Pokémon Masters.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Mostly subverted but one employee mentions that he's "embraced the darkness in his heart". This same employee is implied to be the one that defects to Team Rainbow Rocket with Faba in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Confusion Fu: There's no set theme, team, or class with them, so they can use just about anything against you. They're usually rare Pokémon though, with Dragon types like Shelgon or Sliggoo, fossils like Anorith and Lileep, or trade evolution Pokémon like Porygon2 and Gorebyss.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Team Plasma from Pokémon Black and White and Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Both evil teams are fanatical believers of their seemingly noble causes especially towards the common welfare of Pokémon up until the reveal that they aren't as noble as they look what they are initially purported to be. But they are significantly different to them in many ways.
  • Unlike the original Team Plasma who have a giant medieval castle and the new Team Plasma who have a giant flying ship as their base of operations, the Aether Foundation's base of operations is an artificial island.
  • Both evil teams also believe in the idea of taking away Pokémon from trainers. Team Plasma's cause is a textbook case of Paper-Thin Disguise, being that it is self-serving and hypocritical to begin with right from the start, and as such nobody takes them seriously, since it's abundantly clear that they only want to steal their Pokémon. The Aether Foundation, on the other hand, are more complex at hiding their true motives, using their abundant resources and professional strategies to hide what they are really up to.
  • Team Plasma, during the events of Black 2 and White 2, split into two splinter factions, the knight-themed Old Team Plasma who loyally serve N and are more altruistic in their intentions of helping Pokémon; and the pirate-themed New Team Plasma who serve Ghetsis and are more violent terrorists who desire world domination and conquest. Aether Foundation remains a singular, unified group even after Lusamine's defeat and becomes a more benevolent company dedicated to protecting Pokémon.
  • Whereas Team Plasma use their guise of protecting Pokémon to hide their true motives of conquest, Aether Foundation are, at the end of the game, more genuine and upfront about saving and protecting Pokémon.
  • Unlike the New Team Plasma Grunts who are card-carrying villains committing blatant acts of terrorism without a cause, Aether Foundation Employees are mostly Punch-Clock Villains who do their job to protect the island from intruders.
• The Coup: In Pokémon Masters, several employees want to overthrow Lusamine from her presidential status and hand over the leadership to Team Rocket.
• Death Glare: The female employees sport these when battling the player during the Aether Foundation infiltration.
• Elite Mooks: Aether Employees' choice of Pokémon make them a cut above the average evil team's grunts, and you can't really predict what they'll use.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: The female employees sport these when battling the player during the Aether Foundation infiltration.
• Face–Heel Turn: One employee defects to Team Rainbow Rocket alongside Faba in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Foreshadowing: By means of a Call-Back. Their uniforms (particularly their caps) resemble pallet swapped versions of Team Rocket's. This gives you an early hint that they're Evil All Along in Sun and Moon. This trope is downplayed in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon as they are genuinely good, if on the Well-Intentioned Extremist side of things.
• Heel–Face Turn: During the post-game of Sun and Moon, after Lusamine's Ultra Beast obsession and affliction with Nihilego's neurotoxins has been dealt with, the protagonist can visit the Aether Foundation again. The Foundation is still around, but is now attempting to save and conserve Pokémon for real, with Gladion as their president. Further enforced by the animation set used by Aether Foundation employees in the Battle Tree being much friendlier than those used during the infiltration of Aether Paradise. Similarly in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon once Lusamine fails in protecting Alola, she admits she was wrong to take Nebby, and the Aether Foundation goes on to trust in the protagonist to stop Necrozma.
• Helpful Mook: In Aether Paradise, one employee would man Gladion's boat for you should you ever need to return to the mainland, and another in the main entrance will heal your team. Averted with one mook in another room; who says that even if he loses, he won't tell you anything.
• Just Following Orders: The reason why you had to battle them when trying to look for Lillie was that they suddenly were put on high-alert and were ordered to stop intruders in general.
• Leitmotif: Have a laid-back and futuristic theme that plays throughout their paradise. There is also a violin version that plays in the standalone labs found throughout the region. It later receives a serene-yet-unsettling remix mixed with Lusamine's leitmotif in her encounter theme, a mysterious and villainous mix after their antagonistic side is exposed, a much more threatening and cinematic mix in the Employee battle theme, and finally a flat-out disturbing mix played in their secret basement.
• Light Is Good: Mostly in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon and after their Heel–Face Turn in the post-game of Sun and Moon.
• Light Is Not Good: In contrast to the mainly-black Team Skull, their main colors include white and gold, and they're just as much villains as the former in Sun and Moon. However, they become good in the post-game after Lusamine's Ultra Beast obsession has been dealt with.
• Locked Out of the Loop: A few employees were kept in the dark on the true intentions of the higher ups of the Foundation, and some of them even end up genuinely aiding the player and their friends along the way. Some of them make it clear that they are antagonizing the player for the sake of it, however.
• No Name Given: Played with. As soon as they're no longer considered villains, even generic members of the Aether Foundation trainer class are allowed to have real names. However, the named generic employees are only battled in the Battle Tree.
• Obviously Evil:
  • Subverted. After the intro where Aether employees were chasing Lillie with Slasher Smiles, was anybody really buying that they were a benevolent company, on a mission to help all Pokémon? However, it is implied that the majority of employees don't even know what's going on and are hostile only due to you being an intruder. In the post-game, once Lusamine's obsession with the Ultra Beasts and affliction with Nihilego's neurotoxins has been dealt with, the Aether Foundation really does become a benevolent company that helps Pokémon. This trope is also subverted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, as they are a benevolent company that helps Pokémon but kidnap Nebby in an effort to stop Necrozma from stealing Alola's light.
  • Played straight for the employees in Pokémon Masters, where several of them are aiding Team Rocket by stealing the Ultra Wormhole research from Lusamine to overthrow her. In fact, the battle mugshots between good and bad employees put them apart by the game's normal battle theme and the remixed Aether Foundation employee battle theme.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Averted. Aether Employees aren't restricted to typical grunt Pokémon. Expect to see lots of types and strategies to boot.
• Punch-Clock Villain: With the exception of Sun and Moon's version of Lusamine and Faba, most of the employees are really just doing their job and protecting their research from intruders (i.e. you). Subverted with at least one employee in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, who joins Team Rainbow Rocket and aids Faba in a multi battle.
• Rule of Cool: An employee expresses how she joined the team because she thought that the uniforms were cool, then she laments how much work it is to look after Pokémon.
• Slasher Smile: The male employees sport these when battling the player during the Aether Foundation infiltration. The ones that chase Lillie in the intro have them as well.
• Unwitting Pawn: Most of the lower ranking members have no idea about the Sun and Moon's version of Lusamine's plans and only attack the player because they were told they were trying to steal Pokémon.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Whenever you see them on the second and third islands, they're celebrated by the populace, and work closely with trusted authorities. Because the protagonists took them down by storming their secluded headquarters before they can kickstart their leader's plan, most Alolan citizens are Locked Out of the Loop regarding their true intentions, though some important NPCs are hinted to know this but keep it secret for some reason. It helps that they undergo a Heel–Face Turn after Lusamine is taken down. This trope is subverted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where they're genuinely good as a whole, if misguided.
• Wealthy Philanthropist: According to a scientist at Aether Paradise, Lusamine's father was an immensely wealthy man who started the Aether Foundation because of his love for Pokémon.
• Would Hurt a Child: One employee implies that they're going to murder Hau, Gladion, and the Player after they go to the secret labs.

Lusamine (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Lusamine (ルザミーネ ruzamiine)

Click ^here to see her fused form with Nihilego

Voiced by: Michelle Ruff (Pokémon Masters - EN), Sayaka Ohara (Pokémon Masters - JP)

"I still need that Pokémon. I need to get it back. [...] It looked like it was suffering... Like it pained it to be in this strange place... I can't bear to see that happen! I will save it. And I will love it!" - From Pokémon Sun and Moon

"I will force Cosmog to use it's power and it may very well die. But if it will save the world for all my beloved Pokémon, then that is what I will do. Lillie. I will be using the Cosmog you stole for a great purpose. You have kept it safe until now, and for that... I thank you." - From Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

The lovely Lusamine functions as the Aether Foundation’s president, though as it turns out, she's not as lovely as she seems. At least, in the original Sun and Moon.

---

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Subverted. She appears to be pretty young but is actually over 40.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Discards her daughter Lillie, declaring her to be worthless, and was prepared to kill her during their confrontation in Ultra Space. She tightly controlled every aspect of her children's lives, right down to what clothes they could wear, as both Gladion and Lillie attest. Lillie later tells Gladion that, as bad as she was when they both lived with her, she got worse after he fled with Type: Null.
  • This behavior seems to be a result of Nihilego's neurotoxins as this trope is heavily downplayed in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. While she does keep some of her controlling tendencies and temporary disownment of her children, she isn't as abusive to them, just more of a case of being a tough parent struggling with her grief for losing her husband. Not to mention, some of her crueler dialogue is replaced with kinder dialogue.
  • In Pokémon Masters, she has undergone a bit of a Heel–Face Turn and has rekindled her relationship with her children, but she is still haunted by the horrible things she did to them (and to the Alola region), and is plagued with self-doubt over herself and if it's right for her to still be a part of their lives. On the other hand, she could be feeling that she is taking full responsibility (or rather, blaming herself) for her part in what Necrozma had done.
• Action Mom: She is easily one of the strongest characters in the game, and could easily put Gladion or Lillie back in their place. In Sun and Moon at least, though, this is not a good thing.
• Adaptational Badass: Depending on the version, this also comes with Adaptational Wimp. In Sun and Moon Lusamine is the Big Bad and the Final Boss of the main story, fusing with Nihilego to powerup herself and her Pokémon considerably to the point she's tanky enough to withstand a hit from a Legendary Pokémon. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon however, she's an Adaptational Wimp, as she is not the Big Bad, that role being usurped by Necrozma, and then she's a Damsel in Distress thanks to Team Rainbow Rocket.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the original games, she is a crazed, abusive mother and Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is willing to callously off anyone in order to live out her obsession with Ultra Beasts, specifically Nihilego who causes this behavior with its neurotoxin, before suddenly having a Heel–Face Turn offscreen. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon she is a well-meaning, decent if flawed Reasonable Authority Figure and Anti-Hero who is willing to do anything to save the people and Pokémon she loves from what Necrozma plans to do with Alola's light, as well as genuinely caring for her children despite not being the best parent as well as being mad at them for stealing the Pokémon needed to stop Necrozma, and finally seeing the error of her ways and changing them for the better.
• Adapted Out: Her Mismagius from the originals was switched out for a Lopunny in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Due to her obsession with Nihilego and evil personality being inflicted with its neurotoxin no longer being present in these games, she never fuses with one and thus her Motherbeast form also does not appear.
• Affably Evil: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, her friendliness is shown here to be rather genuine, unlike her evil personality in the original games. First, she thanks Lillie for keeping Cosmog safe until it was captured. Then she takes a moment to show pity for Cosmog's pain, and acknowledges its love for Lillie. After she was defeated in Aether Paradise, instead of ranting like a bratty teenager like in the original games, she becomes impressed with the player character's strength in battle and compliments him/her. Finally, she feels genuinely touched by Gladion's concern for her, and takes a moment to reassure him that she'll be fine when she goes to stop Necrozma.
• Almighty Mom: No matter how much Lillie and Gladion try to stop her, she proves to be one step ahead. If it wasn't for you, she would've gotten what she wanted, (having Cosmog open up a wormhole so that she could unleash the Ultra Beasts, and also stay in Ultra Space) even after Gladion ran away with Type: Null, which was itself created to defeat those very same Ultra Beasts. And in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, despite being mad at her children, she is willing to save them from Necrozma, along with all the Pokémon in existence.
• Alternate Self: The Lusamine of Sun and Moon and the Lusamine of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are drastically different, presumably because of one getting infected by Nihilego years before the story began, but one (the infectee) is a cruel, Faux Affably Evil manipulator who has no problem abusing or killing anyone who interferes with her plans, the other is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who ultimately wants to avenge her husband and lacks actual malice towards people as much as wants to do what she views as right.
• Amazon Brigade: Her Pokémon team is all-female with a cute or beautiful theme. They are also one of the toughest fights in the game, with great natures, individual values, effort values, and Totem Boosts on top of that in their second battle.
• Anime Hair: It looks like several giant sheets of paper.
• Anti-Hero: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she is motivated by a desire to save the world and all the people and Pokémon she loves from Necrozma, as well as the desire to avenge the loss of her husband, rather than out of totally insane selfishness. That said, she still goes through with nearly killing Nebby to open the Ultra Wormhole and sends several Aether Foundation employees to stop you from reaching her, even deciding to battle you herself... Just to prove that she is strong enough to face Necrozma herself.
• Archnemesis Dad: Gender Flipped: She's this for Gladion and Lillie, especially for the latter in the original games. The player and Hau are mostly just along for the ride in the main storyline, with Lusamine's children being the primary force when it comes to taking her down.
• Asleep for Days: In Sun and Moon. After being released from Nihilego, Lusamine falls into a coma. However, Lillie tells you after you beat the Pokémon League and during the celebration that Lusamine had recovered from her comatose state and even tried to come to the celebration as well.
• The Atoner: Tried to be so in Sun & Moon if it weren't for her sick condition holding her back. Her Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon incarnation is a more straight example, which has more or less become the main sample.
• Ax-Crazy: In Sun and Moon. Be it innocent bystanders or her own children, she doesn't care who she has to hurt to get what she wants. To put things into perspective, even Guzma, the guy who calls himself "destruction in human form", thinks she's too far gone to be reasoned with, though this is admittedly after her mental state has gotten a lot worse from being inflicted with Nihilego's neurotoxins.
• Badass Adorable: Her team is full of them. Her team theme is cute or beautiful Pokémon^note Clefable, Mismagius, Milotic, Lilligant, Bewear, and Lopunny, and all five of them have perfect individual values and ideal natures and effort values, meaning that each of them is likely to be able to crush a casual player's Pokémon in a one-on-one fight unless they're facing a type or level disadvantage. Somewhat downplayed in Sun and Moon - all of them (except Mismagius) lack type coverage moves, and can be shut down with the right resistances.
• Badass in Distress: The Team Rainbow Rocket subplot in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon centers around Lusamine being held hostage while the evil team takes over Aether Paradise, all so Giovanni can use the Ultra Beasts' power to brainwash her into becoming his pawn and lending all of Aether's technology and knowledge of the Ultra Wormholes.
• Bad Boss: In Sun and Moon. Faba and Guzma are shown to be scared by her and think she's gone off the deep end. She also uses both of them as pawns and seemingly has no care about them.
• Bears Are Bad News: She has a Bewear, which are infamous for killing people by accident.
• Beauty Is Bad: In Sun and Moon. A deceptively beautiful woman secretly plotting to go to Ultra Space even if it means unleashing Ultra Beasts on Alola.
• Benevolent Boss: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she treats her employees far better than her original counterpart, even if she is not without flaws. She even treats Guzma more respectfully and makes good on her statement on how strong Guzma is by treating him more like a partner than a pawn. It's telling when she gets captured by Team Rainbow Rocket, Guzma immediately goes in to help the player character and Lillie save her because of her respectful treatment of him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she is a very decent and well-meaning if flawed person. But she is a force to be reckoned with as well. Harming the people (including her children) and Pokémon she loves and the Aether Foundation is a very good way to get on her bad side. Just ask Faba and Necrozma.
• Big Bad: Ultimately of Sun and Moon. She's also the first female example in the series. Subverted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where it's revealed that she's actually fighting the actual Big Bad, Necrozma.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Appears to be a kind and helpful woman when she is introduced, but she is anything but that. Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, when her kind and helpful nature is revealed to be genuine this time, as she is only harsh to Lillie and Gladion for stealing Cosmog and Type: Null, respectively, since they were both needed for more heroic purposes this time, and she only disowns them out of feelings of genuine betrayal and hurt disappointment. Her earlier behavior in Sun and Moon is implied to be a result of Nihilego's neurotoxins.
• Boss-Only Level: She is the only enemy in the small area of Ultra Space that you get to visit courtesy of Solgaleo/Lunala. There aren't even any random encounters. But in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, that part of Ultra Space is called the Ultra Deep Sea, when Nihilego can be caught there many times, even Shiny ones!
• Boss Remix: Her battle theme is a remix of her normal theme.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In Sun and Moon. She is unhealthily obsessed with Nihilego and the other Ultra Beasts. Considering that Nihilego is based on a Myxozoa, which brainwashes the fish it infects, her obsession and insanity might stem from mind-control.
• Breaking Old Trends: The first leader of a villainous team that's a woman, and the only known person to fuse with a Pokémon. Her goal in Sun and Moon is probably the smallest scale one, wanting to stay in Ultra Deep Sea with the Nihilego while Ultra Beasts wreak havoc on Alola.
• Broken Bird: Once a paragon and a loving mother, Lusamine underwent a tragedy - namely the loss of her husband and the father of her children to an Ultra Wormhole - that changed her personality for the worse, turning her into a controlling mother. Even in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where she's less abusive and doesn't descend into insanity, Lusamine is motivated to defeat Necrozma not out of altruism, but rather to protect the ones she loves and for her own self-satisfaction, believing it will help her overcome the helplessness she felt when she lost Mohn.
• Brutal Honesty: Those comparisons between her and the player in Sun and Moon run really deep...
• Character Catchphrase: "How annoying."
• Climax Boss: In Sun and Moon. While not the Final Boss, the battle with Motherbeast Lusamine concludes the game's primary storyline, with only the Pokémon League left afterwards. Fittingly, the fight is one of the most difficult in the game.
• Combat Stilettos: She wears heels throughout most of the game and is an extremely proficient Pokémon battler. Her intro animation for her first fight and Title Defense battle starts with a strong clack of her right heel.
• Confusion Fu: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, her Lopunny knows Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, and Dizzy Punch.
• Control Freak: She was very controlling of her two children, down to choosing exactly they were allowed to wear. Before the reveal, she briefly tries the same on Hau, a small boy she'd never even met before. She grows out of this in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • Lusamine compares and contrasts with the Big Bad of the prior game, Lysandre, in quite a few ways. Both of them are wealthy philanthropists who are introduced to the player long before their official reveal as villains, but Lysandre is a Devil in Plain Sight whereas Lusamine's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing while under the influence of Nihilego. Lysandre directly leads his game's main villainous team while Lusamine serves as a Mysterious Backer to hers. The methods and motives of the two are parallel but also differ in some important ways: both want to destroy the world after spending years trying to better it, but Lysandre is convinced that mankind as a whole can't be saved because it's fundamentally flawed, while Lusamine rejected humanity because she can't comprehend why a select few - her family - never showed her what she believed to be love. Both of them are also very fixated on the concept of beauty, and have a significant but antagonistic relationship with the player's closest ally (Professor Sycamore for Lysandre, Lillie for Lusamine). Admittedly Lusamine's goals can be seen as more a rejection of the world and wanting to leave it behind rather than any desire to destroy it, indeed the only explicit destruction she mentions is being okay with the Ultra Beasts wrecking the islands if it makes them happy. Otherwise she is content to just stay in another dimension, unlike Lysandre who decided the world should change for him. While in the retelling, Lusamine instead seeks to use Nebby to save Alola.
  • The Big Bad of the game even further back, Ghetsis. Both of them lead a team who claim to look after the common welfare of Pokémon but while Team Plasma's true agenda is absolutely ruthless and self-serving, the Aether Foundation genuinely wanted to help Pokémon before Lusamine got involved with Nihilego and in the retelling is instead trying to save Alola. Both are also Abusive Parents. (Lusamine in the original game) However, while Team Plasma's ruse was paper-thin and it was clear that Team Plasma couldn't be trusted since they blatantly steal Pokémon from trainers to "free" them. The Aether Foundation does a much better job of hiding its shadowy intentions, using far more professional strategies and having far more resources to carry out their plans. While the Aether Foundation stayed whole in both the original game and it's retelling/remake, Team Plasma split, due to half following Ghetsis and half actually wanting to help Pokémon with their king, N. While Ghetsis was driven only by love for himself while harboring callous apathy or even outright contempt for others, Lusamine is driven by a self-serving insanity that she mistakenly believes is pure love and a desire to give love and affection to others she deems worthy of receiving it, induced by Nihilego. Both Ghetsis and Lusamine became physically ill by the end of their story arc, but while Ghetsis remained irredeemable to the last, Lusamine seeks to make amends, according to Lillie and is a much better person in Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon.
  • She contrasts Cyrus from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, where both of them are businessmen hiding their true agenda, while they are not revealed as villains until the latter end of the main story. Unlike Cyrus who is a blatant Straw Nihilist wanting to remake the world in his image by using Dialga and Palkia, Lusamine wants to reject the whole world in front of her rather than changing it to her liking. Whereas Cyrus only leads the Team Galactic and nothing else, Lusamine is revealed to be the true backer of Team Skull.
  • In Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon, she contrasts N. Both are the most altruistic villains in the Pokémon core series and believe that their actions will be for the benefit of Pokémon in the long run. However, N wanted to use a Legendary Pokémon to separate people and Pokémon in an incorrect view that they are better of that way and thought of himself as a hero when his actions were detrimental to both humans and Pokémon alike. Lusamine is trying to stop a dangerous Legendary Pokémon from destroying Alola and if she succeeded, she actually would have been a hero... but her methods would've likely alienated her from her children forever.
  • On a more meta level, she's the Pokémon series' very first female Big Bad.
• Collector of the Strange: Nothing gets stranger and more morbid than having dozens of cryogenically frozen Pokémon on display.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: She's the head of the Aether Foundation company and the main villain in Pokémon Sun and Moon.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Surprisingly, most of her team falls under this in Sun and Moon. All of Lusamine's team save Mismagius lack coverage moves, and can be easily shut down by a Pokémon with the right resistances. Even Bewear, a juggernaut with the ability to sweep teams on her own, is helpless against Ghost types ^note It gains Pain Split in the second battle, but Pain Split only draws out the inevitable.. Though given how diverse her team is, one would need a separate Pokémon to deal with each one. Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where her team has much better coverage (though Lilligant still lacks coverage).
• Cute and Psycho: In the final battle in Sun and Moon, her Badass Adorable Pokémon team get a little... demented.
• Dark Action Girl: The "Dark" part isn't obvious until later, but she's nonetheless a very competent opponent in battle.
• Death Glare: In the final battle of Sun and Moon, all of her 'mons except Bewear have these expressions when given a Totem aura.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Some of her actions (And even her motivations) actually make her somewhat like a player of the Pokémon games. And it's played for horror.:
  • Lusamine loves Pokémon, especially ones that are needy or suffering, and wants all of them... which is a common goal in the franchise.
  • Lusamine has a huge collection of Pokémon in cryogenic stasis. Hau, Lillie, and the player character are horrified at seeing this. How many players have a huge collection of Pokémon in PC Stasis, just like her? When Lillie calls her out on treating Pokémon and people as merely things to use and discard as she pleases, Lusamine responds by asking what makes her so different from the player character putting Pokémon they no longer need inside a Box. However, this comparison rings a bit hollow in these games, where Poké Pelago provides boxed Pokémon with a place to frolic. Obviously, Lusamine doesn't know about it, otherwise she'd know where her husband is — but the player character surely does, and never thinks to mention it.
  • A brand new unknown Pokémon appears. What does Lusamine want with it? Why... she wants it herself. Which most players wanted with the Ultra Beasts anyway.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon she is trying to stop the latest Legendary Pokémon that is going out of control and threatening to destroy the region, just like players of past generations. However, she is oblivious to the fact her actions have the potential to harm others and she herself is unable to stop Necrozma. Her motives for stopping Necrozma are also implied to be more about avenging the loss of her husband rather than about saving Alola.
• Dragon-in-Chief: In Sun and Moon. Nihilego is not considered sentient as it doesn't seem to have actual malice and is motivated on self-preservation. Lusamine is the one with the plan.
• Dramatic Irony: Her point that the player can catch Pokemon and shove them in the PC to be forgotten in a similar way as she ditches any Pokémon she doesn't consider beautiful has a bit of weight to it, but the game has the Poké Pelago feature- an island chain where every Pokémon in your PC boxes bands together to help you out by getting you helpful items, up to and including Gold Bottle Caps- one of the most valuable items for competitive training. The dramatic part comes into play when you realize the person responsible for setting that up was her amnesiac husband.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: In Sun and Moon. Her apparent "fusion" with the Nihilego she captured leaves her somehow an even more wrecked individual than before; that is, until she's knocked out of her senses by Solgaleo/Lunala and the Nihilego is off her. Information given about Nihilego in the post-game implies that this is basically what its neurotoxins always do to a host that it latches onto, and that Lusamine's repeated exposure to said toxin left her in a lingering case of sociopathic madness.
• Dying as Yourself: Downplayed in Sun and Moon. While she doesn't actually die, she apparently returns to her former self before losing consciousness and entering a temporary coma.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Despite all she's done in Sun and Moon, including trying to murder her children, once she's defeated and recovers from her coma Lillie says she wanted to attend the player being crowned Champion if she weren't too weak to go, implying they would have let her attend. Lillie is also comfortable letting her rebuild their relationship.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, it's more justified, as Lusamine is not as villainous as she was in the original games, and undergoes a more extensive Heel–Face Turn. Because Lusamine is motivated by the desire to avenge the loss of her husband, Lillie makes it clear that while she didn't approve of her mother's methods, she understood that they were motivated by the desire to avenge her father. As such when Lusamine apologizes to her for what she did, it's obvious that Lillie had already forgiven her.
  • In Masters, it is shown during the story event she and her children debut in that she hasn't quite forgiven herself for what she's done.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Downplayed in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, as she eventually got reunited with Mohn while he still remembered nothing about his family and Aether Foundation. At the very least however, she finally knows that not only her husband is still alive but he is living a happy life as well.
• Evil Matriarch: She's Lillie and Gladion's mother and the first female main antagonist in the main Pokémon games. Zigzagged in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, when she's revealed to have a kind and helpful nature this time, as she needs Cosmog to help protect Alola's Pokémon - but is still far from a good person until Character Development kicks in.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Her fused form has eye-like patterns across her tentacles, with what seems to be Z-Crystals acting as their pupils.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: In Sun and Moon. In contrast to most other Obviously Evil team leaders, she looks perfectly innocent and helpful (even resembling Gen IV Big Good Champion Cynthia to some degree), but is one of the most psychotic characters in the series.
• Fallen Heroine: She used to be good before she lost her husband in the Ultra Wormhole, which caused her to take a much darker path. Assuming he was dead.
• Faux Affably Evil: In Sun and Moon. Like Ghetsis, in the Japanese version, she continues to speak in an overly polite manner even after she drops her charade.
• Feet-First Introduction: In both the English and Japanese trailers, though it's more apparent in the Japanese one. Zig-zagged in-game, as while you see her model first, the cutscene that plays when meeting her starts on her feet before panning up the rest of her body. Her battle animation is also introduced in this manner, probably as a deliberate Call-Back to the above.
• Females Are More Innocent: Relatively speaking, when compared to the male villain team leaders that came before her. She used to be a loving mother and only turned evil and psychotic after losing her husband to an Ultra Wormhole and then being infected with Nihilego's mind-altering neurotoxin.
• Fingerless Hands: After fusing with Nihilego, her shoes disappear, revealing her now toeless feet (though it's possible they're covered in some sort of substance or membrane).
• Foreshadowing: In Sun and Moon. She is visibly annoyed when Hau mentions Lillie, and has a sinister grin when everyone else is freaking out over Nihilego's first appearance.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In Sun and Moon. In her pre-battle animation as Motherbeast Lusamine, she throws her Ultra Ball and flies right towards the camera while pulling off a Nightmare Face.
• Friend to All Living Things:
  • How she presents herself in Sun and Moon, and allegedly had been before she went insane. As of the present, she's anything but.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon however, this is a genuine aspect of her personality. She makes it clear that she will do anything to protect the Pokémon she loves from what Necrozma plans to do with Alola's light.
• Fusion Dance: Performs this with her Nihilego before the final boss battle in Sun and Moon. This also gives all her Pokémon Totem Boosts. In reality though, this is very well likely how Nihilego further parasitizes on its host, and she ends up with a nice heaping load of neurotoxin in her system.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She uses the adorable plush-looking Bewear.
• Girly Bruiser: All of her Pokémon are feminine in design and are among the toughest the player has to fight in the story.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Ultimately subverted. She secretly serves as this to Guzma in the first half of the game, because while she doesn't directly get involved in Team Skull's schemes, she is their secret financial backer. Later on, she takes Guzma's place as the Big Bad of the game, thus becoming much more involved in the plot as the true main antagonist of Sun And Moon.
• Graceful Loser: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, defeating her at Title Defense has her take her loss much better than previous battles, even as far as finding it interesting.
• Green Thumb: Uses the Grass-type Lilligant on her team.
• Good Parents: While not so much in the main story, Lillie states that Lusamine was a kind, loving mother before she changed. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, you can see this side of her later in the story.
• Half-Human Hybrid: In Sun and Moon. She fuses with Nihilego to create this.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • She comforts Lillie and finally recognizes her as being beautiful even when not dressed to resemble Nihilego, before falling into a coma. Lillie reveals at the end of the game that Lusamine regained consciousness and is starting to rebuild her relationship with her daughter, also wanting to see you at your coronation as Champion.
  • She has a much more detailed one in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, coming to full terms with her faults and feeling remorse for them, now being determined to do her best to make it up to her children - from a safe distance, as she doesn't want to control their lives anymore. She also occasionally battles you in as a Champion challenger, being gracious and complimentary to you when she does.
• The Heavy: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon—her actions still cause much of the conflict, but her previous Big Bad status is now taken by Necrozma and later Giovanni.
• Heavy Sleeper: In Sun and Moon. According to Wicke in the Sun and Moon post-game, the Nihilego's neurotoxins still in Lusamine's body are causing her to have issues with waking up^note Wicke specifically says "the President is having issues rousing herself", implying that the neurotoxins side-effects include something akin to narcolepsy.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her blonde bangs cover her right eye, fitting her deceptive personality and facade she puts on for other people.
• Horrifying the Horror: She absolutely adores Ultra Beasts, so when she tells the protagonist and Lillie to "Run away... that thing is a monster!" in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon when Necrozma shows up, it's time to run your ass off.
• I Have No Son!:
  • She claims that she has no children right to Lillie's face when you are trying to rescue Cosmog from the Aether Foundation, citing that anybody who truly loved her wouldn't have betrayed and abandoned her as Lillie and Gladion both did. Then again, she hasn't been herself for a while.
  • Downplayed in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where she still disowns her children for stealing Cosmog and Type: Null, respectively, but she'll still do everything she can to save them along with the Pokémon of Alola from Necrozma's wrath. Even her facial emotions express how downplayed it is, going from an enraged scowl in the original games to a hurt and disappointed look in the new games.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she reunites with Mohn when he visits Aether Paradise for a tour of the facility. He does not remember it, or her, but Lusamine doesn't press the issue any further, and lets him go because he's happier this way. That said it is indicated she may rekindle her relationship with Mohn, as he expresses that he intends to see her again.
• It's All About Me:
  • She doesn't care about anyone that she doesn't deem beautiful enough for her love, and even those that she does consider worthy of her love are viewed as possessions rather than sentient beings with free will. Before the final battle with her, Lillie calls her out for only ever thinking about herself; Lusamine doesn't even try to deny it and flat-out asks Lillie why she shouldn't.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon she still has this characteristic to a degree, Lillie summarizing her as a selfish person because she does what she thinks is best for everyone without considering the feelings of others.
• Jerkass: In Sun and Moon. While she seems nice the first time you meet her, Lusamine is revealed to be nothing but an extremely sociopathic and selfish bitch. She is also abusive to Lillie and Gladion, and even disowns them as her children later on because they dared to reject her "love". Not to mention she even tried to kill them!
• Jerkass Has a Point: In Sun and Moon. She wasn't wrong about the fact that you can put additional Pokémon in the PC, so technically they can be replaced if they aren't strong enough (interestingly Sun and Moon introduced a method to make any Pokémon have perfect IVs, making her argument less true).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she gains more likable and redeeming qualities, such as having more understandable and less completely selfish motives, and ultimately realizing her mistakes and doing her best to make it up to her children, as well as being more reasonable. Also, she only disowns them because she felt genuinely betrayed by them when they took Cosmog and Type: Null, but she still says that she will save them from Necrozma, showing that for all of her abrasiveness towards her children, she still cares about them enough to save them from Necrozma. Her response to Hau's surprise at her familial connection between herself and her children describe her best.
  Lusamine: Those wretches beside you left me. But I will still save them.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In Sun and Moon. It's a minor one, but when Nebby cries out in pain after being used to open an Ultra Wormhole, she yells at it for making too much noise.
  Lusamine: Ugh, must you be so noisy, even inside there? What an annoying Pokémon. The only thing I need from you is your power!
  • Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where she takes pity on Cosmog's pain and briefly hesitates when Lillie again emphasizes that what she is doing could kill it.
  Lillie: If you use too much of its power, it will die!
  Lusamine: (turns away) I... I am Lusamine.
• Killer Rabbit: Most of her team consists of cute, but deadly Pokémon, such as Clefable, Bewear, and, no pun intended, Lopunny.
• Knight Templar: She believes she is doing something righteous when it comes to helping injured Pokémon, while her true intentions are unusually bizarre and twisted. She is somewhat more of a straight example in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where she wants to defeat Necrozma and save Alola, although it's all under the justification that she can't "love [her] babies" if the world's light is stolen.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • In Sun and Moon. When Lillie begs her not to use Nebby to open the Ultra Wormholes, warning her that doing so might kill it, Lusamine informs her that she knows that might happen, but as long as it does what she wants it to, she doesn't care.
  • Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. When Lillie tells her that using Nebby to open the Ultra Wormhole might kill it, Lusamine understands it and clearly doesn't want to do this to Nebby, but she feels that she must in order to save Alola from Necrozma. After Necrozma's defeat at the hands of the player, Lusamine decides to take Nebby back to Aether Paradise to care for it, and orders Lillie to help care for it too, as a way to make up for what she did.
• Lady of War: She is a beautiful woman who gives off a serene and elegant aura, and also happens to be one of the most formidable battlers in Alola. This extends to her team, which are all stereotypically cute, elegant, or feminine in some way, and are also extremely powerful.
• Large and in Charge: She's rather tall and is the boss of the Aether Foundation.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Sun and Moon. In Ultra Space she ends up being defeated by the evolved Cosmog, the same Pokémon she sent goons after and ultimately abused, nearly to the point of death, for her own selfish desires.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Her sudden decision to fight Necrozma head-on alongside Guzma pretty much obliterated the Ultra Recon Squad's plans and burned the ashes. She gets called out on it too.
• Leg Focus: The camera and her Proper Tights with a Skirt bring emphasis to her legs. If her official art and in-game model are to be trusted, her legs are almost twice as long as the rest of her body from the waist up.
• Light Is Good: Downplayed in Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon, as she is willing to sacrifice Nebby if it means she can save Alola from Necrozma.
• Light Is Not Good: In Sun and Moon. She's angelic in appearance, though definitely not in behavior. She wears mostly white with gold with blonde hair and she's the biggest Knight of Cerebus since Cyrus as she outcasts two of her family members as tools for her will and when they defy her she decides to try to kill them (only when her madness reaches its peak though). She also is willing to torture "Nebby" to death. She states very clearly that if everyone doesn't agree to her standards then everyone can die by her will. She's also a Bad Boss who uses her minions as pawns.
• Living Doll Collector:
  • She has a collection of Pokémon that she cryogenically froze to preserve their "beauty and perfection". She also treats her own children as dolls rather than people in Sun And Moon, expecting them to look and behave however she wants them to, and viciously discarding them when they display the slightest bit of independence. Gladion likens living with her to being a "living ornament" instead of a person.
  • This is implied to be taken in a different direction in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where Lusamine is implied to have cryogenically frozen her Pokémon collection and controlled her children to a certain degree as a way to prevent losing anything else she loves, like her husband Mohn. She's even the one who decides to unfreeze her Pokémon collection after her Heel–Face Turn instead of a generic Aether Foundation employee, as she realizes that she needs to give her loved ones the freedom that they need to grow up properly without interfering in their affairs from now on.
• Loss of Inhibitions: Because of Nihilego's neurotoxins, Lusamine becomes more openly cruel towards her children and more obsessed with the Ultra Beasts, intending to shower them with love alongside all the Pokémon she collects.
• Love Freak:
  • Deconstructed. Lusamine's motivations revolve around love, and she rants about trying to spread her love to everyone around her several times. The problem is, as a textbook sociopath, Lusamine doesn't really understand what love is, and as a result her brand of controlling affection tends to push others away, leaving her bewildered and angry over how anyone could reject her love before writing them off as being "ugly" and unworthy of her affections.
  • It's revealed in the post-game that her father, who founded the Aether Foundation, was also a Love Freak and that Lusamine inherited his love for Pokémon, particularly those that are beautiful or those most in need of it. She also loved her husband and children, loving the former so much that she drove herself mad in her research and experiments with Ultra Wormhole energy trying to bring him back after he went missing in the Wormhole. Then she discovered Nihilego and things took a drastic turn for the worse.
  • Even in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon she cites her love for all Pokémon as her main motivation. Fortunately, she has a Heel Realization before it can get as extreme as it did in Sun and Moon, claiming that a love where she can let others flourish on their own is a more beautiful kind of love.
• Love Makes You Crazy: It's implied that her obsession with Ultra Beasts in Sun and Moon and her hatred towards Ultra Wormholes Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon came out of desperation to find her missing husband.
• Mama Bear: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon despite disowning her children because they left her, she still cares about them enough to try and protect them from Necrozma, and even when she is defeated, she tells Lillie and the player character to run away without her so she'll be safe from Necrozma. In the aftermath of Rainbow Rocket Episode, after realizing Faba's scheming also put her daughter in great danger, she give Faba his Fate Worse than Death punishment by demoting him into intern position.
• Magic Pants: When fusing with Nihilego, her brooch, shoes and stockings disappear, only to come back intact after she's separated.
• Making a Splash: She uses the feminine water-type Milotic as part of her team.
• The Man Behind the Man: She's this in the first part of the story for Guzma, and therefore Team Skull, as their secret supporter.
• Manipulative Bitch: Lusamine's twisted perception of love is psychologically manipulating anyone she's fond of to keep them in line so she can continue to use them as puppets, and employs this on her children. She also sponsored Team Skull and convinced them to do her dirty work by taking advantage of their financial difficulties and personal turmoil, and used the Aether Foundation’s benevolent image to present herself as a good person. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, while her manipulative nature is still in place, her reasons are more altruistic, only needing Cosmog to open the Ultra Wormhole to stop Necrozma from stealing Alola's light, and having the Aether Foundation stop anyone who gets in her way to make sure no one can interfere with what she feels is for the greater good.
• Mask of Sanity: Lusamine's vicious insanity is very carefully masked behind an empathetic and loving facade. Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where her empathetic and loving nature is genuine this time, to the point where she'll do anything to protect all the Pokémon in existence, no matter what she has to do. It is implied that in Sun and Moon her previous behavior is a result of Nihilego's neurotoxins.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The plant she's named after (the garden balsam or Impatiens balsamina) is a beautiful ornamental plant with healing properties, fitting her benevolent appearance. However, it's also bitter and slightly toxic upon ingestion - which fits with her nature under Nihilego's neurotoxins.
    • Garden balsam is also invasive on several islands in the Pacific Ocean; Alola is based on Pacific islands and her goal in Sun and Moon is to summon the Ultra Beasts (which according to the developers were conceived as a reference to invasive species).
  • Her English name keeps the above reference but brings to mind the Latin lux (light), in keeping with her appearance and status as head of the seemingly good Aether Foundation.
• Moral Myopia: In her Nihilego-induced state, Lusamine suffers almost from a Blue-and-Orange Morality where she cannot and does not comprehend that she and her actions could be wrong in any way. This makes her so disconnected from reality that she sees nothing wrong with hurting people, but can't stand when it naturally drives them away. In her eyes, rebelling against her wishes or showing any sort of opposition makes them "ugly" and no longer worthy of love; meanwhile she is the victim who's being hurt by them and never did anything wrong to deserve such treatment. After losing to the player character for the first time, she even asks him/her, without a hint of irony, "How can you be so awful?" When later confronted by the player character and Lillie in Ultra Space, she actually states to her own daughter that she will never forgive her for stealing Cosmog from her, which really rings hollow considering that she tortured Cosmog into opening up multiple Ultra Wormholes against its will.
• Motive Rant: A brief one after Nihilego's first appearance, as she filibusters about sharing her love with the Ultra Beasts and all the other Pokémon in the world. It becomes much darker in hindsight once what's Beneath the Mask is revealed and the player learns just how twisted Lusamine's concept of "love" really is in Sun and Moon.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Mother Beast Lusamine has several tentacles, four of which even have claws that make them look more hand-like. Ironically, she still lets her Pokémon do the fighting as opposed to getting involved herself.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: She's over 40, but barely looks much older than her children.
• My Beloved Smother: This is at least part of the reason Gladion ran away in Sun and Moon; as according to him, he was "like an ornament" to her, wearing whatever she told him to wear, and acting however she wanted him to act. It's also why Lillie is so timid and lacks confidence.
• Mysterious Backer: Team Skull's. Her identity is at best, vaguely alluded to a few times, and it's only after Lillie is kidnapped that it comes out in full.
• Never My Fault: She has a big problem with this in Sun and Moon, thinking she is justified in everything she does and that anyone who opposes her are the bad ones. Not so much in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where she shows signs of wavering and has to convince herself what she's doing is justified, and then clearly admits that she was wrong and Lillie was right after getting her ass kicked by Necrozma.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Her desire to avenge her husband from the otherworldly Ultra Beasts is utterly warped into insane infatuation thanks to the parasitic entity Nihilego. Becoming so obsessed with the Ultra Beasts that she endangers others in her efforts to be with the entity and please it, to the point of even fusing with the creature.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Often does one when she's mocking Lillie. It is also her speaking animation in the overworld, as well as one of her poses in one of her TCG artworks.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Zigzagged — She's plenty active in the story of Sun and Moon and battles the player twice, but after fusing with Nihilego and taking on a surely-stronger One-Winged Angel form... She still uses her Pokémon to fight the player, rather than battle them directly.
• Non-Elemental: Her Bewear is primary Normal type. In Pokemon Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon she uses Lopunny as a replacement for Mismagius.
• Not Good with Rejection:
  • It's subtle at times, but the game implies pretty heavily that most of Lusamine's villainy is/was prompted by the disappearance of her husband Mohn and the discovery of Nihilego, followed by both of her children running away from her due to her abuse of them. It becomes most obvious by the end of the Aether Foundation story arc, where, having been abandoned by her entire family, all she wants is to be left alone with the Nihilego in Ultra Space for the rest of her life because they'd become her gold standard for beauty, perfection, and worthiness of receiving her love.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon we see a bit more of this, although it's a bit more subdued. While her children leaving still has an effect, her reaction is not so extreme as to lead to hating her children, she still is deeply enraged by her children opposing and leaving her, and she still uses cryogenic freezing on various Pokémon so they can stay with her always. She gets better though after a humbling encounter with Necrozma, begins the process to restore the frozen Pokémon, allows her children independence, and even allows her amnesiac husband Mohn to choose how and when he meets with her.
• Obliviously Evil: In Sun and Moon, it's implied that she's more insane than out and out evil, which only serves to make her more dangerous and terrifying as it makes her nigh-impossible to be reasoned with. She's insistent that what she's doing is right and refuses to let anyone tell her otherwise.
• Offing the Offspring: In Sun and Moon, after losing her rematch against the player and utterly crazed/enraged, she tries to personally kill Lillie while being still fused with Nihilego.
• Oh, Crap!: Gets a deliciously satisfying one when she starts unfusing after the evolved Cosmog hits her fused form.
• Older Than They Look: She's over 40 years old - even though by first glance, she looks to be somewhere in her 20s - which is lampshaded by Hau's dumbfounded reaction upon learning this fact.
• Olympus Mons: When wearing a Sygna Suit in Masters, she pairs up with Necrozma.
• One Bad Mother: Motherbeast definitely qualifies in the original games.
• One-Winged Angel: For the second battle against her, she fuses with Nihilego into a half-human, half-jellyfish beast, and uses Totem power to buff all of her Pokémon. You may be forgiven for thinking Lusamine's fusion with Nihilego would actually lead to a final boss battle against her directly, though.
• Optional Boss: Exclusively in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she is one of two additional challengers in the Title Defense match.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Uses the Fairy-type Clefable, which she always sends out first.
• Paint It Black: While fused with Nihilego, her golden hair becomes black with gold strands, and her entire color scheme also darkens (with her feet turning purple altogether).
• Parental Neglect: Lusamine's parenting is very neglectful, often refusing to listen to her children's concerns and simply ignoring them as she believes that she either doesn't care about them, only the Ultra Beasts, or she's doing what's best for them.
• Parents as People: What she is in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. She's not the best parent, being very controlling, but she is otherwise a very well-meaning person and there is no doubt that she cares for her children unconditionally.
• Pet the Dog: After she is revealed to be a Hero Antagonist, a lot of these moments she has in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon substitute her crueler moments in the original games. First off, she thanks Lillie for keeping Cosmog safe until now, instead of saying that she'd betrayed her, and then when Cosmog is trying to resist, she takes pity on it instead of being annoyed for making too much noise and commends it for its bravery and love for Lillie.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Surprisingly enough, her Mismagius is her only Pokémon that can't be completely shut down through resistances (as it knows Shadow Ball, Power Gem, and Mystical Fire). All of the others have only one or two attacking moves, leaving themselves wide open to being blocked by a 'mon with the right resistances. That said, her team as a whole is diverse enough that you'll likely need a separate Pokémon to deal with each of them if you go this route, and dedicated Stone Walls will likely find themselves frustrated by the fact that every single one of them has some means of healing itself.
  • Thrown out the window in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Every single one of her Pokémon has plenty of coverage moves thanks to the Move Tutor and only Bewear has any real healing option in Drain Punch, but that is really more to make up for the recoil damage of Take Down.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Her hair turns black (albeit a few thin streaks of its original color) after fusing with Nihilego, which itself changes from primarily light blue to black.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: She wears a short skirt and long stirrup-type leggings, which fits her feminine aesthetic and ambition in running the Aether Foundation.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: In Sun and Moon. She treats her children as if they were dolls, and is prone to throwing tantrums like a bratty teenager when angry.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: She is the president of the Aether Foundation and is one of the most difficult fights of the series.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She is more reasonable in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. When Gladion and Lillie start worrying for her safety, she decides to battle the player in order to reassure them that she'll be fine when she goes to stop Necrozma. And after Necrozma's defeat at the hands of the player, she clearly understood what she did wrong and resolves to make it up to her children from a safe distance.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In Sun and Moon, while Lillie is giving her one, Lusamine even gives one to the player character themselves. Especially to note that she points out that just about everyone replaces the Pokémon in their party once they are no longer serving a use to them, which is exactly what the player most likely did... Ironically, this is the game which introduced Poké Pelago, meaning that the player knows for a fact that their boxed Pokémon are on what amounts to an island vacation, and is likely visiting them regularly — this is brought up as a counterargument exactly never.
• Replacement Goldfish: In Sun and Moon she became obsessed with bringing Ultra Beasts into the world and joining them in their own world after her husband disappeared, even more so after her children ran away.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The fact that she had Aether develop Type: Full (later Type: Null) specifically for the purpose of fighting and killing Ultra Beasts, implies that she might have originally intended to destroy them for taking her husband, prior to becoming obsessed with them. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she still has this mindset, flat-out saying she hates the Ultra Wormholes and the creatures who dwell within it such as Necrozma.
• Rule of Symbolism: Lusamine's fused form in Sun and Moon is effectively a representation of what the neurotoxins have turned her into - a monster.
• Sanity Slippage: The loss of her husband did a number on her sanity, causing the obsession driving her during both stories' events. However, once she met Nihilego in Sun and Moon she got a lot worse...
• The Scream: In Sun and Moon. Her only verbal reaction to losing her rematch against the player is to just give a wordless scream. This also the only noise she makes when "fused" with Nihilego.
• Sadist: In Sun and Moon. She often smiles happily whenever she emotionally abuses Lillie or Gladion and inflicting Cold-Blooded Torture on Cosmog. This changes when you confront her in Ultra Space; where instead of expressing any joy, she's now almost perpetually consumed by rage over what the player and Lillie are doing, with even her Psychotic Smirk unable to hide her underlying rage.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Although she still retains some of her selfishness and some of her unsavory deeds from the original games, she is every bit as genuine in protecting all Pokémon, just like her company is striving for. This is even lampshaded by Hau.
  Hau: Miss Lusamine is out there trying to keep Alola safe, right? I knew she was a good person!
  Gladion: I guess... She's always convinced that what she's doing is right and she's really kind of selfish, but... But, I think she really just wanted to find our father, who disappeared into an Ultra Wormhole.
• Signature Mon:
  • Bewear, very fittingly. They both seem cute and innocent, but are actually incredibly dangerous and give people unwanted love that hurts them.
  • In Masters, she instead uses Pheromosa (probably in reference to her previous affiliation with the Ultra Beasts); in a side story during the story event she (and her children) was introduced in, she tells Nanu and Olivia that it came to her out of nowhere and it's become her partner since then. Later, her Sygna Suit variant gives her Dusk Mane Necrozma.
• Slasher Smile:
  • In Sun and Moon, she tends to pull them off whenever she's plotting, and one could argue that even her regular smile counts as a subdued example of one. By the time she's been definitively revealed as a villain in Sun and Moon, it's pretty much become her default expression.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon however, because she isn't as bad in this version, she sports it far less.
• The Sociopath: In Sun and Moon, she is this to a disturbing degree, especially considering she's a main villain in the original games, both which are intended for children. Her grasp of concepts like love and social interaction in general are extremely warped, with Lusamine's particular brand of "love" consisting of forcing control on anybody and anything which shows her the slightest bit of affection and whom she deems worthy of receiving her own affections - and reacting violently when they reject her. She's also quite self-absorbed, generally treats others like objects and/or tools to be used until they're run out of purpose for her (reinforced by Gladion's comment that she's "extremely kind as long as you mean absolutely nothing to her").
• Start of Darkness: The disappearance of her husband Mohn is hinted to have made her into a much colder person.
• Statuesque Stunner: While no official height is given for her, she's clearly taller than average.
• Status Buff: In the second battle against her, she utilizes her Beast Boost powers she obtained from Nihilego to give her Pokémon enhanced power right off the bat.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Her children also have platinum-blonde and angular hair as well as bright green eyes. Gladion also shares her hairstyle, albeit in a much different fashion than his mother.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: She sports these in her Mother Beast form.
• Tough Love: Her treatment of her children in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon is suggested to be this. While she may have retained some of her controlling behavior, unlike the original games, there is no doubt that she cares about her children, enough to try and protect them from Necrozma. And when she acknowledges that Gladion and Lillie have grown up a bit since leaving Aether Paradise, she is genuinely happy. Also if you compare her expressions when she disowns Lillie, from Sun and Moon to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, you'll see that unlike her enraged scowl in the original games, she has a disappointed and hurt expression in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Tragic Villain: Once a caring wife and mother, her futile attempts to reunite with her husband and gradual Sanity Slippage due to the Ultra Beasts made her the villain she is in the present. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she takes it upon herself to defeat Necrozma and save Alola, and her insistence on doing this herself only leads to her defeat and Necrozma almost destroying Alola. All for the sake of avenging her husband, Mohn.
• Traitor Shot: In her first appearance in Sun and Moon, when talking about Ultra Beasts, the camera zooms in on her eyes and her Slasher Smile.
• Tranquil Fury: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, when she finds out that Faba was the one who sold out the Aether Foundation to Team Rainbow Rocket, her expression is basically just a Death Glare that contains enough anger to scare Faba into running away.
• Triumphant Reprise: Her remixed theme in Masters lacks all of the sinister tones of her original theme and sounds much more heroic due to her Heel–Face Turn.
• Troperiffic: She is competing with N for stakes in this.
• Tsurime Eyes: While Lusamine's eyes are normally like this, when Hau mentions Lillie in her first appearance and whenever Lusamine switches to her Slasher Smile, her eyes noticeably become even more slanted. After her final defeat and separation from Nihilego, her eyes look wider and brighter, indicating that her malevolence is gone.
• Uncatty Resemblance: With her long blonde hair, bangs that partially cover her eyes, and white dress with gold jewelry, she bears some resemblance to Pheromosa. Averted in the main series as she never encounters Pheromosa, but in Masters, it's her Signature Mon.
• The Unfought: In a sense. While you do fight her Pokémon, you don't get to directly fight her Mother Beast form in the original games.
• Useless Useful Spell: Subverted with Milotic. Lusamine's Pokémon in the final encounter get a totem aura to power up a stat that benefits most of them, but Milotic, a special attacker, has her Attack boosted. It's revealed that she has Flail in her moveset, which does benefit from the boost.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: In Sun and Moon. This is a woman who, while under the influence of a Nihilego, abused her children and tried to micromanage every aspect of their lives down to what clothes they should wear, declared that they weren't her children and eventually attempted to murder them when they tried to rebel against her control, freezes the Pokémon she adores so that they'll stay the same forever while they remain on display for her, is willing to hurt and even kill anybody or anyone to further her schemes, Pokémon or otherwise, and in general cares about absolutely nothing but herself and the things she desires. This is all in contrast with Team Skull's general ineffectual goofiness and Alola's cheerful and bright atmosphere.
• Villainous BSoD: Downplayed in Sun and Moon. She partly recovers after her final defeat in Sun and Moon, yet she is still struggling with the remaining Nihilego's neurotoxins in her body.
• Villainous Breakdown: In Sun and Moon. She undergoes a gradual one throughout the last part of the main story of Sun and Moon. After her first defeat, she's annoyed by the player character's interference with her plans, but still appears relatively cool-headed. Compare this to her later appearance in Ultra Space, where she's visibly livid and angrily screaming at the player character and Lillie. This ultimately culminates in her fusing with Nihilego, which leaves her not only unable to speak coherently but also in a much more violent state of mind.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In Sun and Moon. Lusamine is the president of the Aether Foundation, a well-known organization that heals Pokémon. This helps mask her true colors, as she actually experiments on Pokémon to achieve her goals.
• Walking Spoiler: It's nearly impossible to talk about her without spoiling that she's the villain of Sun and Moon or her changed role and true personality in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: [lIn Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she is willing to do anything to save the people and Pokémon she loves from Necrozma, even if it meant sacrificing Cosmog.
  Lusamine: I will force Cosmog to use its power and it may very well die. But if it will save the world for all my beloved Pokémon, then that is what I will do.
• When She Smiles: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, she sports this during her Pet the Dog moments after she is revealed to be a Hero Antagonist, and it's oddly quite touching to see. Because she is not as bad this time, this is basically her default expression. This is in stark contrast to the original games where she sports a Slasher Smile during her Kick the Dog moments.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In Sun and Moon. It's stated that Lusamine's obsession with the Ultra Beasts stemmed from grief over the disappearance of her husband Mohn in an Ultra Wormhole, and that at least at first she was looking for a way to get him back, and possibly seek vengeance upon the Ultra Beasts using Type: Null. Lillie reminisces that her mother was fun-loving and kind to her before that incident, after which her obsession with finding Mohn and the discovery of Nihilego is implied to have twisted her into a gradually worsening sociopath, which eventually resulted in Gladion fleeing from her, later followed by Lillie herself. Ultimately, all Lusamine wanted was to have the love of her life back, but in her psychosis forgot how to care for her children and played with forces she didn't understand, and as a result both she and her family suffered the consequences that she was too obsessed to even consider in the first place.
• Would Hurt a Child: Makes an ambiguous murder threat to the player character at the start of their first battle in Sun and Moon, an unambiguous murder threat at the start of their second battle, and then attempts to kill her daughter Lillie afterwards. Averted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, when she states that even after Lillie and Gladion betrayed and left her, she will still save them along with all the Pokémon in existence, as it is her duty as President of the Aether Foundation, even if it she has to sacrifice Cosmog.
• Yandere: She really, really really loves the Ultra Beasts. So much so she would literally destroy the world if it meant being able to be with them. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, this trope is completely averted as she's more motivated by wanting to stop Necrozma and losing Mohn.

Wicke

Wicke (ビッケ bikke)

The assistant branch chief of Aether Paradise has a caring personality, so she’s loved by all the Aether Foundation employees.

---

• Bait-and-Switch: With a name like "Wicke" would lead players think she'll be one of the Big Bad's Co-Dragons, and looks like someone you'll fight late-game. She isn't, and even assists you in healing your Pokémon.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Wicke's glasses only add to her charm.
• Friend to All Living Things: Wicke cares about the well-being of the Foundation's Pokémon; because of this, she is popular among the Foundation's staff. This is heavily contrasted by Faba's Jerkass personality, who only plans to be on top while seeing the rest of the Foundation's staff as useless compared to him.
• Ironic Name: Her name is one letter away from the word "wicked". She is one of the few non-antagonistic members of the Aether Foundation, supports both Lillie and Gladion in opposition to their insane mother in Sun and Moon, and even heals your team when you storm Aether Paradise.
• The Mole: You learn in the Sun and Moon post-game that she's now working for Interpol, and provides them with information on the Ultra Beasts.
• Ms. Exposition: Her role for the remainder of Sun and Moon after the completion of the postgame is showing you info on the Ultra Beasts.
• Nice Girl: In the initial trailer that revealed the Aether Foundation, both Wicke and Lusamine were built up to be sweet and motherly characters. In the game proper, Wicke actually is as nice as the trailer made her out to be, in stark contrast to Sun and Moon's version of Lusamine.
• Neutral Female: She neither directly opposes nor particularly assists the player's efforts at rescuing Lillie and Cosmog, though she does heal their Pokémon after they return to the Paradise's main floor for the second time.
• Non-Indicative Name: Her name's Wicke, but she's not really wicked.
• Only Sane Woman: Wicke is one of the few employees who remains nice and helpful throughout.
• Parental Substitute: Implied to have been a mother figure to Gladion and Lillie after Lusamine turned cold towards them.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Wicke really is as nice as she appears to be, unlike Faba and Lusamine (more so in Sun and Moon than in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon).
• Token Good Teammate: She is the one who helped Lillie escape the Aether Foundation from the beginning. Also, during the protagonist's investigation of the Aether Foundation to save Lillie, Wicke is one of the few members who doesn't battle you. In fact, she even heals your team at one point. This is even further suggested in an official release poster for Ultra Sun and Moon which shows a V-Formation Team Shot consisting of Guzma, Sophocles, the Player Character, and Wicke facing off against Team Rainbow Rocket.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Heavily implied to be malasadas. In both games, she gives the player character and Hau some Big Malasadas at various points. Taken further in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where she gives them away much more frequently, mentions malasadas when you talk to her in the postgame, and is even seen holding a basket of them in a piece of promotional art◊ for Episode RR.
• The Unfought: The only named member of the Aether Foundation to not be fought, even though in Ultra Sun and Moon she mentions that she went on a journey in Kanto when she was younger, meaning that at least at one point she was a trainer.

Faba (Sauboh)

Faba / Sauboh (ザオボー zaoboo)

Voiced by: Alexander Gross (Pokémon Masters - EN), Hiroshi Yanaka (Pokémon Masters - JP)

The Aether Foundation's branch chief. He has a very arrogant personality, and believes himself to be far more important than he actually is.

---

• Adaptational Villainy: He was a Hate Sink to begin with, but in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he sells out the entire Aether Foundation to Team Rainbow Rocket, letting them take over so they can expand the company across entire dimensions with himself on top.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a goatee, and has a habit of stroking it.
• Breaking Old Trends: He's the first Psychic-type specialist in the series to unambiguously not have Psychic Powers himself.^note It's unclear whether or not Lucian has them. Dexio is another example, but his type specialty isn't revealed until after the Aether Foundation storyline is complete.
• Big "WHAT?!": When Hau points out the flaw in his plan to stop the group.
• Child Hater: After being defeated by the player character, he remarks how he dislikes children. Despite his later change of heart, he still seems to be this to an extent later on; when speaking to Faba in the post-game discussing whether he would make a better acting President of the Aether Foundation than Gladion and answering that Gladion would do a better job, he nearly goes on a tirade before stopping himself.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Every right-hands of the Big Bad in previous games are often loyal to them and will serve their boss loyally. Faba is the exact opposite, who not only wants to sell out Lusamine and the Aether Foundation to Team Rainbow Rocket in the retelling, but he is also never loyal to her in the first place. And contrary to previous right-hands who either disappear after their organization was defeated or simply redeem themselves (as in the case with Saturn from Team Galactic), Faba is neither of those, being that in USUM, he was instead punished for his backstabbing actions through his demotion to intern by Lusamine.
• Cool Shades: The large, green sunglasses he wears are his trademark accessory, and are designed to resemble fava beans.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Hamminess, massive ego, and the below Villain Ball moment aside, he's a competent enough Pokémon battler to defeat Alola's Elite Four and challenge you for the title of Champion.
• Dirty Coward: Prides himself as the Aether Foundation's last line of defense in his debut yet refuses to fight a Skull Grunt to save a Slowpoke, questioning what they'd be able to do if he was incapacitated and gets the player to fight the grunt instead.
• Dishing Out Dirt: In Pokemon Ultra Sun And Ultra Moon his Slowbro is replaced by Claydol.
• Epic Fail: His attempt to cover his tracks in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon when it comes to working with Rainbow Rocket is so transparent that no one is convinced.
• Evil Genius: He oversaw the various projects regarding the Ultra Wormholes and is the lead researcher in the Foundation.
• Fate Worse than Death: Played for Laughs. Rather than be arrested for his villainous actions, he is kept on at Aether Paradise... but is demoted to intern position, which absolutely horrifies and depresses him.
• Foil: To Wicke, as they're both branch chiefs of the Aether Foundation. Unlike the caring, well-loved Wicke, however, Faba is a self-righteous jerkass who only cares for being on top for selfish reasons.
• Hate Sink: He's a selfish, greedy coward who only cares about standing on top of the company, and even being "reformed" along with the company doesn't help his case. Even more so in his Ultra appearances, where he sells out his own company for his own advancement.
• Heel–Face Turn: Turns over a new leaf post-game. Or so he claims, him trying to become Aether President and nearly falling back into his Child Hater tendencies in the post-game also implies that he just wants to save his own ass. Subverted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where he betrays the Aether Foundation in the post-game when a better offer shows up, showing that he only cares about his own advancement.
• Hypocrite: In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Faba badmouthing Gladion is changed to him thinking that he would be a better president than Lusamine, calling her out for being an egotist. While Lusamine does still have issues with putting herself before other people, she's overall much better about it in these games than she was in Sun and Moon while Faba became even more of a selfish jerk.
• Irony:
  • He claims to dislike children, yet his strongest Pokémon is a Hypno, a species that is notorious for preying on children's dreams.
  • In the post-game, he gives the player a Dubious Disc during a conversation about him having turned over a new leaf.
• It's All About Me: He cares for himself and the advancement of his own career above anything and anyone else.
• Jerkass: He has a high opinion of himself and acts very condescending towards Wicke and the player character. In Ultra games, after he got his just desserts by being demoted to intern position in the aftermath of Rainbow Rocket crisis, the regular employees absolutely enjoy bossing him around, which implies that he is also an abusive boss to his subordinates.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Actively cultivates his position as Branch Chief throughout the game, usually defying to engage in most of the other roles he needs to do through ego or incompetence, and is on Lusamine's side with her ambitions. As a result, he is demoted when the Aether Foundation is restructured following her defeat. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, his demotion happens when he sells the entire foundation—Lusamine included—out to Team Rainbow Rocket explicitly to advance his own career, making his fate all the more poetically just.
• Making a Splash: His Slowbro and Bruxish. In the remakes, this redundancy is answered by replacing Slowbro (who never used a Water-type move in any of the battles it is used in, anyways) with Claydol.
• Meaningful Name: Named after fava beans, which are what his glasses are meant to resemble.
• Number Two: To Lusamine in the Aether Foundation. Subverted after the post-game of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where he is reduced to a intern.
• Optional Boss: Aside from being fightable at Aether Paradise in the post-game, he's also one of the potential challengers to the player's title of Champion... only in the original Sun and Moon, however. His status as an Optional Boss is Adapted Out for Lusamine in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
• Psychic Powers: Specializes in Psychic-type Pokémon. But unlike most Psychic-type specialists, only his Pokémon have them.
• The Quisling: Being the Dirty Coward that he is, Faba jumps ship and joins with Team Rainbow Rocket.
• Redemption Demotion: During the post-game, Faba gets demoted down to a rank-and-file member, but also promises that he's had a change of heart.
• Red Herring: In Pokémon Masters, during the Alola Villain Arc, he is seen acting suspiciously, talking in secret to a "president" and hiding his blatant sketchy behavior from the foundation's employees. Pretty much Lusamine and the employees have all the right to suspect him to be the real mastermind behind the Ultra Wormhole mess wrecking havoc in Pasio...but it turns out it really wasn't him but just the traitorous employees pulling the strings. When he's confronted about his secret calls to a certain "president," he just says he's been trying to get the "president" of Pasio (Lear) to give him a job as a retainer (he just kept calling Lear a "president" out of respect), but the entire mess with the rogue employees made it hard for him to get that job since he doesn't have a good track record in foundation incidents tracing back to him. On the other hand, the rogue employees point out that he could've easily betrayed the foundation if he had been contacted first by Team Rocket, which he sheepishly doesn't deny.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: While he claims to have reformed following his demotion, he's still kind of a jerk.
• Signature Mon: Hypno is his strongest and/or final Pokémon in every battle with him.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He gets very annoyed when not given "proper respect", first shown with him getting upset with Wicke over her calling him "Mr. Faba", to which he points out he has a title for a reason.
• Smug Snake: He prides himself as a genius and a very important person, yet his plans to distract the heroes were very easily foiled. Driving this point further is the fact that Hau of all people was the one to point this out.
• The Starscream: He sells out the Aether Foundation to Team Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon just to aid his own career.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Giovanni's defeat at the end of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon's Episode RR, he tells Lusamine he "would never do such a thing as betray the foundation and invite Team Rainbow Rocket in, just to advance [his] career" after she regains consciousness and his lie falls flat with her in addition to Lillie, Guzma, and the protagonist. This ends up with him being demoted from branch chief to intern, after which he's shown doing manual labor for other employees.
• Token Evil Teammate: Even if Aether Foundation was the main antagonist team in Sun and Moon, Faba is the most-selfish one you'd ever met. But especially in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon where Aether Foundation isn't evil, just misguided, he's this trope played straight.
• Villain Ball:
  • During the protagonists' second visit to the Aether Foundation in Sun and Moon, Hau asks if Faba has a key to a locked door, to which he replies yes. Hau then points out that if he had just stayed hidden, said protagonists would then be stuck and probably unable to stop said evil plans.
  • In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he instead tells the protagonists that Lusamine's at her mansion, during the point where they had no idea where she was.

Ultra Recon Squad

A team of four people that debut in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. They hail from Ultra Megalopolis, a massive city in a world where the light has been stolen by Necrozma. Their goal is to return light to their world while preventing the same fate from befalling Alola.

Tropes that apply to the organization as a whole

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Living in a near-lightless dimension for so long has left their skin so pale it looks blue.
• Anti-Villain: They're a group of Well-Intentioned and Reasonable Authority Figures who just want to save their world and any others from Necrozma - Dulse and Zossie want to stop it entirely, while Phyco and Soliera wish to learn how to control it. They become anti-heroes once they realize that aligning themselves with Lusamine wasn't the best course of action to take. In the past, their greedy ancestors tried to take control of Necrozma and eventually caused it to lose part of its body, reducing it from its Ultra form into the base one introduced in Sun and Moon, where it is in constant agony and needs to keep absorbing light to stay active.
• Ambiguously Human: Blue skin aside, the fact that they apparently come from a world beyond an Ultra Wormhole, have a technological prowess unmatched by other people in the Pokémon World, and command their own Ultra Beasts, but are unfamiliar with the local customs of Alola (for example, their gesture for the typical "Alola!" greeting is square-shaped instead of the usual rainbow shape) leaves them suspect. They even refer to the people of the regular Pokémon world as "humans", indicating they themselves are not (or at least, do not consider themselves human). Albeit they also use terms like "the humans of the Alola region" which means they could be just distinguishing where they come from rather than saying they themselves are not some form of human.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Unlike Team Galactic who are only dressed as spacemen to fit with the evil team's space theme, Ultra Recon Squad members are Ambiguously Human Higher-Tech Species hailing from another dimension. And when it comes to their intentions, which are Well-Intentioned in nature, Team Galactic wanted to remake the world in their image to achieve their leader's goals of creating a utopia that ultimately becomes a self-serving act once Cyrus reveals everything about it. On the other hand, Ultra Recon Squad's motives are genuine, as they actively want to stop Necrozma's terror from other worlds and not wanting to abuse its power, given how their ancestors took control of the Prism Pokémon once for their ill-intended purposes.
• The Glasses Come Off: They only remove their visors when something serious happens, namely Lusamine ruining their plans by deciding to fight it alongside Guzma.
• Higher-Tech Species: In their home dimension, their answer to most problems is to use their advanced technology to fix or compensate for them, and the idea of training Pokémon, drawing out power via bonds with them and battling with them is fairly alien to them (though they do make use of Pokémon powers on occasion, i.e. their arrangement with their Solgaleo and Lunala, and keep some types as companions). One of the first things they do upon visiting the Pokémon world is reverse-engineer the Poké Ball and help the Aether Foundation create the Beast Ball (in this continuity, that is).
• Human Aliens: Were it not for their bluish skin (which is implied to be due to living in a world with no light for so long), they'd be indistinguishable from ordinary humans.
• Olympus Mons: They've managed to capture a UB Adhesive with a Beast Ball and use it in battle. Depending on the version, they have access to a Lunala or Solgaleo that they lend the player so that they may travel to Ultra Space and Ultra Megaopolis after Necrozma assimilates and kidnaps Nebby.
• Out of Focus: Despite being prominent in the manner of Ultra Beasts and how to deal with Necrozma, they don't have many scenes where they are the center of attention, nor do they appear often.
• Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. While Ultra Recon Squad played a larger role in Ultra Space investigations in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon than International Police did in Sun and Moon post-game, and each members have battled at least once, their inexperiences in Pokémon battling are explained, due to the absence of Pokémon battling in their dimensions. And their failure in capturing Necrozma from being ravaged to another dimension could explain this trope. Needless to say, they are competent and reasonable, just not on par with the other trainers in Alola.
• Schrödinger's Cast: Dulse and Zossie are more involved with the plot in Ultra Sun while Phyco and Soliera stay behind in their home world. The reverse applies in Ultra Moon. Their motives in their respective games also differ. They want to stop Necrozma in Ultra Sun, while in Ultra Moon they want to make use of Necrozma's power.
• Signature Mon: Barring the Furfrou used for the first encounter, UB Adhesive / Poipole is the only Pokémon they use in battle.
• Strange Salute: They use a greeting gesture similar to the Alolan greeting gesture, which starts with both hands at head-level before moving them out, down, and back in near hip-height in a square shape.
• Theme Naming: All four major members are named after types of seaweed.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The concept of Pokémon battling is relatively unknown to their world, and as such, they're not very experienced battlers. Additionally, Dulse / Soliera only use a single Pokémon in battle, as opposed to most trainers, who carry around several. However, that one Pokémon is usually an Ultra Beast that's always much higher-leveled than most other Pokémon in the vicinity, and probably outlevels the player's team as well.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In Dulse / Soliera's first battle against the player, they use a Furfrou, which never reappears and is never mentioned again.
• What the Hell, Hero?: They all react this way when Lusamine tries to take action against Necrozma.

Captain Phyco (Shionira)

Phyco / Shionira (シオニラ shionira)

The Captain of the Ultra Recon Squad in Ultra Moon. He has a prominent mustache that he frequently strokes.

---

• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Soliera's brawn.
• The Leader: In Ultra Sun, he explicitly names himself as the Ultra Recon Squad's captain.
• Non-Action Guy: He never becomes a Trainer, instead observing Soliera's experiments in Pokémon battling.
• The Stoic: Always relatively levelheaded no matter the situation.
• What the Hell, Hero?: All of them have this moment, but Phyco's stands out in particular at Altar of the Moone where he reacts somewhat justifiably like this towards Lusamine.

Soliera (Mirin)

Soliera / Mirin (ミリン mirin)

The Second in Command of the Ultra Recon Squad in Ultra Moon.

---

• Brains and Brawn: The brawn to Phyco's brains.
• The Conscience: Soliera serves as this to Phyco, being the slightly more emotional of the two.
• Fist Pump: Part of her speaking animation in the overworld. She also does this when she orders her Pokémon to attack in battle.
• Kiai: Her battle intro is this, complete with a roar and a dramatic pose.
• The Heart: More or less this, being relatively compassionate and questioning the safety of the player's well being during a talk with Phyco.
• Ms. Fanservice: Soliera is debatably the curviest Pokémon character to date with shapely legs and a rather large chest.
• Not So Stoic: On several occasions, particularly in battle.
• The Stoic: Usually, much like Phyco and Dulse.

Dulse

Dulse (ダルス darusu)

A member of the Ultra Recon Squad in Ultra Sun, a levelheaded man dedicated to the mission to subdue Necrozma and analyze its influence on Alola.

---

• Badass Armfold: His default battle stance.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: Underneath his visor, Dulse has these, likely to symbolize his unwavering dedication to his mission.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The tallest guy paired with the smallest girl.
• Not So Stoic: Noticeably looks quite surprised whenever he loses against you. His losing quotes also show more emotion than how he appears.
  Dulse: (after first fight) I don't understand!
• Perpetual Frowner: More so than even Gladion.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The calm blue to Zossie's energetic red.
• The Stoic: Has a far calmer and more mature disposition than the younger Zossie.

Zossie (Amamo)

Zossie / Amamo (アマモ amamo)

A member of the Ultra Recon Squad in Ultra Sun. Appears to be a girl around the age of the protagonist.

---

• Cheerful Child: Despite the importance of her mission, Zossie can't help but get excitedly curious over Alolan culture and the concept of a strange new world in general like many children her age would be, and early on in the game she decides that she'd love to be able to do the island challenge sometime.
• Genki Girl: From what can be seen in her official artwork and Dulse telling her to settle down when they encounter Nebby and the player in Seaward Cave, Zossie is quite energetic. Her idle animation has her place her hands behind her back and cheerfully sway back and forth.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The smallest girl paired with the tallest guy.
• Neutral Female: She doesn't fight, which is justified because she's not a trainer (though as she learns more about them she decides she'd like to become one).
• Nice Girl: Zossie is generally friendly and polite to both the player and Dulse and expresses a genuine interest in engaging with Alola's culture.
• Perpetual Smiler: Zossie is always seen with a smile on her face even in dire situations.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The energetic red to Dulse's calm blue.
• Tareme Eyes: In contrast to her teammates, Zossie has round-shaped eyes to reflect her innocent and energetic demeanor.
• Token Mini-Moe: Might just be not only the youngest of the Ultra Recon Squad, but even the youngest official team member.

Team Rainbow Rocket

In general

The villains of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon's post-game. A collection of previous villainous team leaders. For its members, see the pages of their respective games.

---

• The Bad Guy Wins: Every one of them ^note except possibly Cyrus comes from a world where they succeeded.
• For Want Of A Nail: They won because there wasn't anyone strong enough to stop them.
• Legion of Doom: A gathering of previous villain team leaders in a single organization led by the original Big Bad Giovanni.
• Meaningful Name: Rainbow is a good adjective to describe a group composed of many different sub-factions.
• Olympus Mons: All of the team leaders use one of their home region's Legendary Pokémon in battle.
  • Maxie and Archie - Groudon and Kyogre, respectively
  • Cyrus - Dialga (in Ultra Sun) or Palkia (in Ultra Moon)
  • Lysandre - Xerneas (in Ultra Sun) or Yveltal (in Ultra Moon)
  • Ghetsis - Zekrom (in Ultra Sun) or Reshiram (in Ultra Moon)
  • Giovanni - Mewtwo, who Mega Evolves into Mega Mewtwo X (in Ultra Sun) or Mega Mewtwo Y (in Ultra Moon)
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Maxie and Archie didn't know the other was also recruited, but they're teleported away by Colress before they can do much but gawk.
• Villain Team-Up: In a nutshell, with all the previous Big Bads working together.

---