Cyrus is a man. But before that, he used to be a boy. Now, as a child, Cyrus was an above average student who had good grades. The only problem was that he was very antisocial. He didn't have many friends growing up. He didn't know how to communicate with his parents. So, while he may have been the pride and joy of his parents life, he spent too much time with his machines to notice this. He felt rejected, alone. From this, he determined the cause of all the problems in the world: Emotions. He decided then and there that he would create a world without emotion or spirit, so that there may be peace. At a basic level, this seems insane. "Restarting the universe and making it so no-one can ever feel love or joy again is kinda bad." Naysayers can have their qualms, but if you grow up in a world without emotions, how can you miss having them? What could make you feel the loss of something other than having had it and then losing it in the first place? Simply put, no-one would be able to tell the difference. And when you think about it, almost every problem in the world is caused by emotions. Someone murdered someone? Anger, jealousy, bitterness, envy, maybe even joy. They commited that crime for some reason that 100% involves emotions. Wars? Almost all fought for land or natural resources or just general wealth. Simply put, greed. Sometimes they may be fought for pride, another emotion. Racism? Well, you can't hate someone if you can't feel emotion. Honestly, the only unsolvable problems in this situation are those not involving 2 humans, which we're gonna ignore because we won't have the emotions to care about them. Cyrus kinda has a point. Emotions cause every single problem that we humans have with each other. Simple as.
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Cyrus was right
- Thread starter ThatOneSpork
- Start date
I like the energy but I want to correct the term used for Cyrus's major motivation as there is a subtle difference that is kind of lost in translation, and in the second half of this post I'll also fill in some missing details of his backstory since this doesn't take into account any details from Platinum. While Cyrus has a personal vendetta against human emotions, his goal is to create a world without the human spirit. Now you may ask what the difference is, and much like Cyrus describes spirit, it is vague and incomplete. Without the context of the Japanese DPPt script it can seem like the same thing since Cyrus mostly just talks about emotion and spirit interchangeably, but in its original context, emotion is just one part of spirit that is split up into the lake guardians. Mesprit represents emotion, Uxie represents knowledge, and Azelf represents willpower. The term "spirit" is meant to invoke all three of these concepts and is more explicit in Japanese as the term "kokoro", which can literally mean "heart" but can also encompass the mind, body, and spirit.
(Check this thread for more context and info on the themes of the Sinnoh legendaries from the perspective of the Japanese terms used.)
While removing spirit is his ultimate goal, it is true that Cyrus does often blame his own emotions for his failings after battles, and this may have been his main personal motivation as we'll see reflected in his backstory. However, the key is that Cyrus sees his own emotions as the imperfection in his spirit, and in response Cyrus's intention for the new universe is to just do away with the flawed spirit altogether instead of trying to fix himself. But what does it mean to make a universe without spirit? In another context, this term of "spirit" is also what the Hiker in the Platinum Arceus event refers to when talking about the origin of the world.
Arceus ties into this as being considered the original manifestation of "spirit", with the lake guardians then giving spirit to the world.
Now what do you think a world without spirit would look like? It would be a world without the influence of Arceus to create awareness to begin with; an opposite world defined by lacking the concepts of time and space that drove the main world. This would be the distortion world. Even though originally in Platinum, Cyrus was actually pretty mad at Giratina and wanted to destroy the Distortion World as the counterbalance to the real world, later on in Pokemon Generations they would choose to take his character in the direction of staying in the Distortion World because he sees it as his perfect world without spirit. Cyrus is not just concerned about emotions and removing conflict to create peace in the world; he is satisfied just being able to live in an empty world where his flaws don't matter, because nothing matters. This is what it means to remove spirit.
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Your description of Cyrus's backstory falls short here because the way Cyrus's parents treated him was probably one of the major contributors to what drove him over the edge.
You can talk to Cyrus's grandfather on Route 228 in Platinum. Here is what he says:
This tells a story of a kid worn down by his parents' expectations. If Cyrus was the pride and joy of his parents' life, why is his grandfather feeling guilty years later about not taking the chance to get him out of that situation?grandpa said:
Another important part of Cyrus's backstory is that he did have one friend once. It is heavily implied he is the author of the old notebook in Rotom's room, and this is doubled down throughout various later appearances in supplementary media such as USUM and Masters EX in how he reacts to Rotom. I won't quote the entire notebook but the main part I want to draw attention to is the final entry:
The context is that Cyrus made a genuine connection with Rotom possessing his toy robot and at some point he scared Rotom away, and much later Cyrus finds his robot in the town's rubbish heap. Why was his toy robot in the garbage in the first place? The implication is that his parents threw his toy out as another sign of bad parenting.
Touching briefly on USUM and Masters EX as mentioned, Cyrus has a very sentimental reaction to Rotomdex, standing in silence and talking to it directly afterwards, and surprisingly showing some regret for his past.
(usum sources)
To sum up his intro event in Masters EX, Cyrus meets Sophocles and Rotom and they talk for a few hours about their shared interests. Cyrus sees himself in him, but ultimately they cannot agree on if the human spirit deserves to exist or not and they fail to persuade each other to think differently.
(masters ex sources)
tl;dr: Overall Cyrus's motivation is more than just "no emotions = peace" and it stems from a troubled childhood that drove him to a point where his method of dealing with emotional issues was to harness gods to make a new world to get rid of the entire concept of spirit to just avoid his being imperfect, which notably includes emotions but also knowledge and willpower that he seems pretty okay with.
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Damn.
In a weird way, I'm going to have to stand up for Giovanni on this one.
Taking a step back from full immersion (or, often for me, not going to full immersion in the first place), remember that you are playing a video game. Only engaging with aspects that work for you is a perfectly reasonable way to play a video game, and thus to interact with Kanto/whichever other region. Ingame Giovanni is only around for his pursuit of being the strongest trainer, and if that was not a goal that can be separated from the characters and setting this site would not exist. I'm tired of rpgs that touch on the dynamic of the player by saying they're a bad person for a particular style of enjoyment. Go ahead, manipulate the RNG. Evolve a strong mon before you're expected to. Breed a team of 6IV mons or hyper train them. The game exists for your entertainment, the only wrong way to play is if you aren't having fun.
The argument could potentially be extended to Lusamine as a collector/shiny hunter as well as Giovanni the competitive player, but I kind of feel she has too many ties to the rest of the characters to really qualify.
Taking a step back from full immersion (or, often for me, not going to full immersion in the first place), remember that you are playing a video game. Only engaging with aspects that work for you is a perfectly reasonable way to play a video game, and thus to interact with Kanto/whichever other region. Ingame Giovanni is only around for his pursuit of being the strongest trainer, and if that was not a goal that can be separated from the characters and setting this site would not exist. I'm tired of rpgs that touch on the dynamic of the player by saying they're a bad person for a particular style of enjoyment. Go ahead, manipulate the RNG. Evolve a strong mon before you're expected to. Breed a team of 6IV mons or hyper train them. The game exists for your entertainment, the only wrong way to play is if you aren't having fun.
The argument could potentially be extended to Lusamine as a collector/shiny hunter as well as Giovanni the competitive player, but I kind of feel she has too many ties to the rest of the characters to really qualify.