Pokémon X & Y Has Some Surprisingly Dark Lore

10 years later, it’s safe to say that Pokémon X and Pokémon Y have officially entered the “kids who had them as their first Pokémon games are old enough to call them their favorites on social media” stage of the Poké-nostalgia cycle. Game Freak seems to have realized this, as the Pokémon Presents stream for Pokémon Day on February 27, 2024 revealed that the next Pokémon Legends entry, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, will take place in Kalos. Since X and Y never got an updated version or DLC like the rest of the mainline games, one of the most common complaints about Kalos is how unfinished it feels, especially in its storytelling.

Following up the vaunted tales of Black and White and their sequels, many found Kalos’ writing to be underwhelming. The rivals were generally considered one-note, with the primary rival Calem/Serena having an arc very similar to Unova’s Bianca where they realize they can’t measure up to the protagonist’s strength. The evil team wasn’t given much depth aside from “humanity sucks and the villain wants to redo society.” The third member of the legendary trio, Zygarde, was randomly found in a postgame cave with little fanfare or foreshadowing. With the overarching plot feeling fairly bland, many fans forgot about some very interesting, if underused, factors of X and Y‘s lore: AZ and the Pokémon War.

The Tale Of AZ And The Pokémon War

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The player meets AZ on the first trip to Route 13 — a mysterious stranger who is over eight feet tall, dressed in a disheveled manner, and with a key around his neck that definitely won’t be important later. AZ’s appearance is so jarring against the colorful world of Kalos that seeing him for the first time is almost a jump scare. Saying something about a “flower Pokémon,” the mysterious giant departs as quickly as he arrives.

Later, Lysandre will run into the player and bring up some interesting facts about Kalosian history: 3,000 years before X and Y, Kalos was a monarchy that was in the middle of a bloody war. The king of Kalos at the time brought the war to an end using a weapon powered by Xerneas or Yveltal, at the cost of many lives. Chekhov’s gun dictates that this will probably be relevant later, and sure enough, Lysandre thinks that worldwide near-extinction is a great idea and excavates the weapon to kill everyone outside Team Flare. Despite his scientific genius, Lysandre is missing the one final piece to activate the weapon: a key.

Lo and behold, the mysterious giant turns out to be the one with the key. While infiltrating Lysandre Labs, the player finds AZ behind bars. AZ then explains the true history of Kalos in an illustrated flashback: the king’s Floette had fought in the war, where she died. The king had actually built the weapon to bring her back to life, and he succeeded. His rage and despair at her being hurt in the first place remained, though, so he used the machine that gave life and had it do the opposite: create a disaster so massive that it ended the war immediately.

Professor Sycamore also theorizes that Mega Evolution was created through the power of Xerneas or Yveltal’s energy being spread by the weapon. Many Pokémon were killed in order to power the machine in the first place, so Floette, disturbed and saddened at her trainer’s bloodlust, left him. The story ends with a disquieting shot of the graves of AZ’s Pokémon victims.

Books in Lysandre Labs elaborate on the aftermath of the war: the king disappeared, and his younger brother, who had fought in the war to conquer Kalos for himself, realized how much damage had been done and had a change of heart. To make sure that such a calamity would never happen again, the brother buried the weapon and told his child where it was. 3,000 years later, Lysandre was born from that bloodline.

AZ appears again after Lysandre’s final defeat in Geosenge Town to thank the player for their help. He’s not seen again until the final scenes of the game, where he challenges the player to a battle after they become the Champion. He uses three Pokémon, all associated with longevity like his own: Torkoal, Golurk, and Sigilyph. After the battle, AZ finally lets go of the past. Suddenly, something floats down from the sky and into his hands: his Floette. After 3,000 years, the two reunite and depart for parts unknown.

Why The Kalos Lore Should Matter More

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For a supposedly important region-wide disaster and foundational moment in Pokémon history, the Pokémon War has gotten nary a mention in either the fandom or the series itself since X and Y‘s release. Maybe the fairly simple structure of the rest of the Kalos story simply overtook it in notoriety, much like it did the well-done Looker postgame subplot. Maybe players’ disappointment at Lysandre being an obvious villain made them forget the more interesting person who inspired him. But with a plot point as big as what’s effectively a life-powered nuke that ended a war, why haven’t more Pokémon games discussed it?

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire actually did touch on AZ and his legacy in the Delta Episode. The Devon Corporation’s “Infinity Energy” was developed from the Ultimate Weapon, and AZ is implied to be the one who gave Mega Rayquaza the title of “The Δ.” While AZ basically just cameos in Mega Rayquaza’s backstory, the use of Infinity Energy to try and teleport an oncoming meteor to another dimension adds an extra layer to the moral dilemma that drives the Delta Episode: send the meteor to another dimension using something powered by dead Pokémon and possibly end up destroying a world of innocent people, or try and summon Rayquaza based on knowledge from what everyone but Zinnia thinks is a fairy tale.

With Mega Evolution being out of focus in the Generation VII games and phased out completely in the games that followed, it’s not that surprising that AZ and the war haven’t come up again. But man, it’s such a missed opportunity. While the war was implicitly something only involving Kalos and no other regions, there were two major missed chances to at least mention it in passing: Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Since Arceus took place in the past (though still long after the war), it’s a bit odd that Kalos never came up among all the references to series lore. In fact, the time frame being different isn’t actually that much of an excuse: not only is the player a displaced modern-day teen, but Ingo from Generation V appears with amnesia due to being “isekai’d” under mysterious circumstances. Is there any reason AZ couldn’t have visited other regions in his search for Floette?

The Paldea games also put a great focus on the past, even among Violet‘s glimpses at the possible distant future. No matter which game is being played, the Great Crater of Paldea is the center of the Terastal phenomenon and is over a million years old. In history class, Professor Laventon and the Hisuian Pokéball design cameo in what seems to be a timeline on Raifort’s wall. The attempt to uncover the mystery of Area Zero started 2,000 years prior to the story. For a game that talks so much about history, it’s odd that the one human character who lived through it all is never even mentioned.

AZ And Z-A: Redeeming An Underutilized Character

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Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be going back to Kalos, but while it’s known where the game will be set, it’s not currently confirmed when it will be set. The trailer starts with a blueprint sketch for the “Lumiose City Redevelopment Plan,” but quickly shifts into a holographic style with a much more futuristic bent. While Arceus taking place in the past led many fans to assume that future Legends games will focus on the history of the regions they take place in, there’s really no precedent set for time periods since there’s only been one Legends game.

No matter the time period, though, it’s a perfect chance for AZ to come back. If it’s in the past, the player might see him while he’s still searching for Floette…or even before the ultimate weapon went off. It’s the Lumiose City Re-development Plan, after all — what if it’s being redeveloped because it was leveled by the war or the ultimate weapon? Plenty of creative stuff could be done if Z-A is set in the future, but given how Kalos has one of the darkest, yet vague histories in Pokémon, it’d be such a missed opportunity not to set it around the time of the war.

The title of the game being a reversal of AZ does seem like a hint that the former Kalosian king will appear, even if the game is set well after the war. He’s immortal; while he and Floette were reunited at the end of the original Kalos games, nothing said he was given his mortality back. Z-A could be 3,000 after X and Y and still have AZ show up. Since Mega Evolution is returning, maybe he’ll be a major figure in its research. Maybe he’ll explain more about how Zygarde and its cells work. Maybe he’ll somehow be king again. AZ’s past is dark by mainline Pokémon standards, but it didn’t get much elaboration, so Z-A has a lot of room to develop his personality beyond “misses Floette and regrets making a nuke.”

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AZ had the unfortunate circumstance of feeling like a side note in a generation that desperately could have used him more. While his actions were vital to the plot of X and Y, his story was shoehorned in so awkwardly that it wouldn’t make a difference if all the scenes where he appeared in person were removed. AZ’s tale gave Kalos much-needed flavor, but it could easily have been explained by Lysandre without ever having to bring AZ onscreen.

He’s a severely underutilized character while also feeling superfluous. Even Pokémon Masters EX, a mobile game whose whole appeal is getting to know the human Pokémon characters more, still hasn’t brought him in nearly five years later; for contrast, Arceus‘ Adaman and Irida were added to the game less than a year and a half after their series debut, and even AZ’s fellow obscure Kalosian Emma was added in during the Team Flare chapter of the Villain Arc. Heck, Lysandre has two versions in the game even though he’s supposed to be buried under the ultimate weapon’s wreckage.

AZ is the character hurt the most by how unfinished X and Y feel. The story ends on his emotional reunion with his Pokémon, but the player had only met him three times before then and wouldn’t have gotten as invested in him as they would have if he had shown up more. He’s the man behind one of the most heinous acts in the series, but without giving the player reason to care about him besides exposition — without letting the player witness more of who AZ is instead of just telling them who he is — the player won’t be that interested in his plotline. Since Z-A is going back to Kalos, the player might finally see just who AZ is as a person.

Pokemon

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