Special:Badtitle/NS90:Talk:Pokémon Black and White/YMMV/The Great Big Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius Effort Post/reply

I didn't think I'd be putting up a reply on my own effort post, but I feel in the mood to talk some about the Pokémon Special incarnation of Ghetsis.

While his appearances are more sporadic than Game!Ghetsis and initially simply followed his role in the games, his part in the climax of the Black and White chapter took an even darker turn with his character than even the games did, making him more of a qualifier. Beforehand we only saw him make speeches to the masses in order to influence them into releasing their Pokémon, direct Team Plasma's actions in the name of "Pokémon liberation", have a Kick the Dog moment where he has his Eelectross electrocute Black so that he can take the Dark Stone, and watch over N in his quest to become the Black Hero. However, he's the creator and mastermind of Team Plasma, so all crimes committed by them (all the grunts, N, Zinzolin, the Shadow Triad, the Hoodman, etc.) throughout the arc can be linked directly to him. Then we get to the climactic chapters at the Unova League Temple - Brycen has made it underground into N's castle thanks to Looker and White's investigation. The sages appear before him and this prompts Brycen to command an attack from his Pokemon only to see Lenora's husband Hawes suddenly thrust in front of the attack as a human shield and a hostage. We see that he's caught in the grip of Ghetsis' Hydregion. Ghetsis himself welcomes Brycen to Team Plasma's castle as means of taunting him. Then as the castle envelopes the League and drills a bunch of drawbridges into the Temple, we see that this action actually endangers innocent people, including a child whose life Drayden has to save. Iris says that people have to be evacuated because of this. The sages then come out, led by Ghetsis, who has Hydregion drop Hawes onto the ground - Hawes cries that because he was being held hostage and used as a shield, Brycen was made to surrender to Ghetsis. Ghetsis states that in addition to making their ideals known, it's required for Team Plasma's plan to show the masses of Unova how overwhelmingly strong Team Plasma is and how worthless their revered Gym Leaders, the official representatives of their cities, are in comparison. He asks for Black to please "gaze upon their despicable forms!", and we see that 6 Gym Leaders have been severely beaten down and tied to crucifixes. He asks Black if he's feeling doubts - "will you go and fight the king, or will you stay and save the Gym Leaders." Then he raises his hand and adds "however, between those two options, you can pick neither." and has Hydregion knock out Black's Pokémon. He taunts Black saying that he and no one present can resist Team Plasma's power now, and he strongly implies he's about to have Hydregion attack Black directly. Just then a bunch of regular trainers come to the rescue, determined to fight Team Plasma, save the Gym Leaders, and protect every human and Pokémon. Ghetsis tells the Sages that humans are foolish creatures in need of enlightment, and that's why we must "eliminate those who would dissuade them", giving a glance at all the trainers, suggesting that all of them must be killed. The Sages are thus prepared to commit mass murder of other human beings on Ghetsis' behest. The Gym Leader are eventually broken free, but by that time, Ghetsis has turned and walked off into the castle.

After N has been defeated, Ghetsis enters the room where Black and N landed, remarking about how unworthy his son is of sharing the name Harmonia with him. He introduces himself as Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius, confirming that he is N's father - that he spurred N into following his ideals all for the purpose of more power for his Team Plasma. He explains his motivations and plans to Black and unlike in the game, he is not angry in the slightest bit - he's calm and grinning serenely as he lays out all the info. The crux of the plan depended on Team Plasma showing overwhelming power over the people in authority such as the Champion, Gym Leaders, and Elite Four, as well as N defeating the hero of truth and Reshiram in battle. N lost his battle instead but Ghetsis insists that his plans have not been disrupted by this momentary setback - if he were to wipe away the inconvenient facts, his goal can still be achieved. Black asks what he means and Ghetsis replies "That I must eliminate you, of course!" and he orders Hydregion to light a fire all around Black. Black refuses to die without a fight so he sends out his Pokémon team, who start immediately getting pummeled by Ghetsis' own team. Black senses something is wrong and then sees that Ghetsis' Pokémon all have type advantages against his - the lineup of his team seems tailor made for taking down his team, and they're all surrounded by flames so that the match-ups Ghetsis wanted to happen can happen and they're separated from a defenseless Black. Ghetsis states that since Black had been such a thorn in his teams's side, he researched his team and prepared for this battle accordingly. He also says that once all of Black's Pokémon are KO'ed, the flames will wipe out Black and his Pokémon, killing them in order to silence N's defeat. He explains that his plan would be undermined were it to get out that N lost to Black, but fortunately the only witnesses to that were Black, N, and Ghetsis inside the castle, so Ghetsis figures he can just kill Black and his Pokémon, then lie to the public about N having emerged the victor of that battle. People would then revere him as the true hero, want to aspire to live like he does in regards to Pokémon, and listen to whatever command he gave, including an order to release their Pokémon. It would further propel the act of Pokémon liberation and anyone who still refused would simply be crushed by Team Plasma's immense power. In the end, only Ghetsis and his Team Plasma would be the only ones left with Pokémon that they could use to rule over the powerless populace of the world - that is the ideal world Ghetsis sought to create all along. Black notes how different that is from N's ideal and asks if N even knew about it, to which Ghetsis replies by giving his biggest grin yet and saying "Of course not. He's merely my plan's decorative ornament." He never calls N "freak without a human heart" here - he calls him that instead. In the games, Ghetsis referred to N as though he were an inhuman creature. Here, he refers to his son as though he were an object - a nonliving thing that exists solely for his use. This gets Black to scream "GHETSIS!" in rage and internally refer to him as a "scumbag" that he needs to bring down or else all of Unova and the world beyond will become Ghetsis' puppets just like N was!

Eventually Black wins the battle by attacking the sun, which turns out to be Volcarona and it was keeping the flames alive. With the flames gone, Black has his Pokémon go all out against Ghetsis', resulting in Ghetsis' defeat. Does Ghetsis get his Villainous Breakdown here? Nope - he merely expresses disappointment in Volcarona's loss, explains where it came from, and turns he leave like nothing even happened. He's willing to leave all his KO'd Pokémon behind too. Black traps him in a stone edge attack and it looks like that's the end of him, but it's not. As Reshiram is reverting back to it's natural Light Stone state later on after Zekrom has flown away, Ghetsis expresses amusement at the idea of Black getting pulled in along with Reshiram and sealed inside the stone. He proceeds to make that very thing happen by using a Beheeyem that his associate Colress lent him, revealing that he escaped his stone prison. He mocks Black by saying that he hopes to never see his face again before teleporting away. Why did he do that? For the Evulz - needless sadism and nothing more. We last see him communicating with Colress on a phone device and it's revealed that Ghetsis has always had Colress use his Beheeyem's power to take control of people's minds whenever he had to make speeches about Pokémon liberation. Those people were forcibly made to release their Pokémon, so spectators who saw that were made to think that they did it in response to his words, so it got them considering releasing their Pokémon as well, thus accelerating the process. It seems Ghetsis is hell-bent on exploiting people, Pokémon, and the ways of society in this world even if he has to violate the minds of others' in order to do so! What an absolute bastard.

His role in the Black 2 and White 2 chapter has yet to be determined, but Volume 52 ends with the revelation that he's still the mastermind behind Colress and the new Team Plasma, and that they have a Plan B that, unlike in the games, Ghetsis seems to have had in the back of his mind well in advance. They have the Plasma Frigate ready and Colress states that they need to locate Zinzolin, get him to join up with them, and then Team Plasma shall "go to war with Unova." We know that Kyurem and the freeze canon will play a part here, but this time we may well get the exact details on what Ghetsis' plans and actions entailed aside from power extortion via freezing shit, as well as detailed effects and ramifications of said actions being committed in populated areas. At most Ghetsis plans on going all-out Fire Lord Ozai on the entire continent of the Unova region, but with ice instead of fire. Or it might not just be ice - Black Kyurem and White Kyurem are on the official artwork for the arc and they have to be worked in somehow, so it's possible that Ghetsis wants to ravage populated areas with the powers of ice, fire, and thunder until they relinquish control and submit to him, not to mention that Colress still has the Weather Trio in his possession and wants to bring them into their Therian forms, so Ghetsis would have backup on this sick plan. And his end goal is the same as always - complete and utter control over all Pokémon and total domination of the world, with him as the supreme ruler of everything!

One last standout thing about Manga!Ghetsis? Aside from his entire demeanor being changed to be more Faux Affably Evil, more of a calm, calculated, sophisticated mastermind, and more resembling a realistic sociopath (the artwork gives him the warmest, kindest, most fatherly looking facial expressions even while he's saying and doing horrible things!), many of the additional crimes given to him here seem to be rooted in violence against other human beings through use of Pokémon's abilities. This shouldn't be a mark against him since Pokémon violence towards humans is absolutely commonplace in this manga, but there's something unsettling about Ghetsis' particular use of it. In other cases of antagonists using their Pokémon to hurt or attempt to kill the protagonists in the manga, there's always been an intensity to it - the villains are feeling intense and driven and really in the moment as they make their attempts on others' lives. With Ghetsis, it's all done with a sort of casual air to it, like the guy is just used to doing this sort of thing and feels absolutely nothing of it - it's just all in a day's work as far as he's concerned. He'll violate human minds, electrocute a kid into a possibly fatal paralysis, hold an innocent man hostage and use him as a shield, beat down and torture Gym Leaders, order the murders of other trainers, attempt to have a kid and all his Pokémon friends incinerated, and then knock that kid into a stone that sucks him inside of it all with casualness and a pleasant smile on his face. While there might have been worse violent acts committed in this manga, the cruelty behind them reaching this level of sadism is unparalleled. So this may well be the definitive Complete Monster incarnation of Ghetsis here. Who knows - one day, TV Tropes might even vote him up!