So I think the thing about Black & White is that it's not intended to entertain N or Team Plasma as right in the first place. The series clearly has the "Humans and Pokemon can co-exist" philosophy from the get-go, and at most the point is a Decon-Recon switch where the idea is to have the argument reinforced by presenting a counter that, valid or not, requires expanding on the idea to respond to it. No one is expecting someone's mind to change about how Pokemon works for the audience perspective, so much as make them think about this fantasy series theme in a way that might parallel a real-life discussion.
I disagree with the notion that N's abuse coming up in the last leg of the game is as clumsy as it sounds, in part because it informs his character without being the center of his arc the way Lillie's was (i.e. journey starts with escaping, growth is exemplified in self-sufficiency being learned, and climax is confronting and showing she's stronger than her mother's abuse on her). Throughout the entire game, N is questioning how the player and everyone can think humans living with Pokemon is so normal and good, which is incredibly bizarre given the fairly clean perspective we see from the cast (and meta knowledge for veteran players): the reveal of N's upbringing is contextualizes this because he was never shown this, so he doesn't have your positive experiences to shape his life. Retroactively applying Lillie's lens to N is a disservice to both characters in my opinion, and to an extent even to their respective stories because not all abuses take the same shape or motive (Lusamine had a very warped and conditional form of love, while Ghetsis flat out only saw N as a tool to his own ends) and trying to judge them all with the same narrative criteria is almost Square-peg -> Round-hole.
On top of this, N is an extreme case, but consider he grew up an orphan (what happened to his birth family never directly stated) and only was shown Pokemon he knew before Ghetsis adopted him and then Pokemon who had been mistreated/abused by humans before, along with minimal human contact outside Team Plasma at all. I don't think the story is taking a "Black or White" stance by saying the system should be upheld vs torn down, because immorality exists in both extremes regardless: even if we as a society decided to separate, immoral humans would still use Pokemon; conversely, even with Pokemon living amongst humans and in harmony as shown, abuses still happen that aren't all caught (Ghetsis is never confirmed to be the abuser of the Pokemon N is raised with, just human experiences they had prior).
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On a tangential note, here's a hot take of mine: Pokemon works best when its villain are simply bad people, no redemption arc or intended sympathy moment for them (and IS AWARE OF THEM AS SUCH see Lysandre). A major facet of this for me is that when the villain is sympathetic in their motive, stories can be afraid to overdo their wrongs for fear of complicating or shooting the message with the messenger.
We've had a lot of discourse about N, but there's the argument to be made that while he's the rival/antagonist, the Big Bad of Gen 5 is obviously Ghetsis, who isn't quite as layered, but definitely very memorable for some lines he'll cross (both directly and even just verbally) compared to other antagonists we've had. Infamously he had no hesitation about attacking the trainer themselves with Kyurem and implicitly intending to off you and N for getting in the way of his plots.
Lusamine as a consensus is regarded as worse written with the USUM retcon to make her character a Knight-Templar/Anti-Hero figure rather than an outright villain, Chairman Rose is a mess because his extreme actions conflict with his altruistic motive and the anime's tragic history (father dying in a Coal Mine -> Avert an energy crisis, including depending on dangerous jobs like mining), and Archie/Maxie have been memed endlessly for being Eco-terrorists that didn't know how the Water Cycle worked (at least in OG, where Remakes they at least knew and didn't care about collateral damage to Humans/Pokemon, respectively). Most Pokemon stories trying to invoke a morally ambiguous or grey antagonist (at least during said stint as one) have fallen on their face.
By contrast, some of Pokemon's most memorable villains are the ones who display little in the way of redeeming qualities.
Leon (and the story by extension) aren't saying to ignore the energy crisis, just not to rush into things literally the night they're talking.
Rose and the story never present a counter to Leon's question of "what difference is one day going to make?" to suggest Rose's urgency is anything but his own rush into the matter, despite this not just affecting him with his plan OR the problem itself. I could almost read this (accidentally or otherwise) as a message about how taking an immediate, volatile solution doesn't necessarily solve a systemic problem compared to a long-term and collaborative effort (something very prescient at the time and at present), but then Rose's plan DOES solve the energy crisis for Galar, essentially sweeping the problem away rather than leaving it on the table for the cast to say "Rose was insane, but this is a real issue we need to tackle going forward."
I disagree with the notion that N's abuse coming up in the last leg of the game is as clumsy as it sounds, in part because it informs his character without being the center of his arc the way Lillie's was (i.e. journey starts with escaping, growth is exemplified in self-sufficiency being learned, and climax is confronting and showing she's stronger than her mother's abuse on her). Throughout the entire game, N is questioning how the player and everyone can think humans living with Pokemon is so normal and good, which is incredibly bizarre given the fairly clean perspective we see from the cast (and meta knowledge for veteran players): the reveal of N's upbringing is contextualizes this because he was never shown this, so he doesn't have your positive experiences to shape his life. Retroactively applying Lillie's lens to N is a disservice to both characters in my opinion, and to an extent even to their respective stories because not all abuses take the same shape or motive (Lusamine had a very warped and conditional form of love, while Ghetsis flat out only saw N as a tool to his own ends) and trying to judge them all with the same narrative criteria is almost Square-peg -> Round-hole.
On top of this, N is an extreme case, but consider he grew up an orphan (what happened to his birth family never directly stated) and only was shown Pokemon he knew before Ghetsis adopted him and then Pokemon who had been mistreated/abused by humans before, along with minimal human contact outside Team Plasma at all. I don't think the story is taking a "Black or White" stance by saying the system should be upheld vs torn down, because immorality exists in both extremes regardless: even if we as a society decided to separate, immoral humans would still use Pokemon; conversely, even with Pokemon living amongst humans and in harmony as shown, abuses still happen that aren't all caught (Ghetsis is never confirmed to be the abuser of the Pokemon N is raised with, just human experiences they had prior).
------------------------------
On a tangential note, here's a hot take of mine: Pokemon works best when its villain are simply bad people, no redemption arc or intended sympathy moment for them (and IS AWARE OF THEM AS SUCH see Lysandre). A major facet of this for me is that when the villain is sympathetic in their motive, stories can be afraid to overdo their wrongs for fear of complicating or shooting the message with the messenger.
We've had a lot of discourse about N, but there's the argument to be made that while he's the rival/antagonist, the Big Bad of Gen 5 is obviously Ghetsis, who isn't quite as layered, but definitely very memorable for some lines he'll cross (both directly and even just verbally) compared to other antagonists we've had. Infamously he had no hesitation about attacking the trainer themselves with Kyurem and implicitly intending to off you and N for getting in the way of his plots.
Lusamine as a consensus is regarded as worse written with the USUM retcon to make her character a Knight-Templar/Anti-Hero figure rather than an outright villain, Chairman Rose is a mess because his extreme actions conflict with his altruistic motive and the anime's tragic history (father dying in a Coal Mine -> Avert an energy crisis, including depending on dangerous jobs like mining), and Archie/Maxie have been memed endlessly for being Eco-terrorists that didn't know how the Water Cycle worked (at least in OG, where Remakes they at least knew and didn't care about collateral damage to Humans/Pokemon, respectively). Most Pokemon stories trying to invoke a morally ambiguous or grey antagonist (at least during said stint as one) have fallen on their face.
By contrast, some of Pokemon's most memorable villains are the ones who display little in the way of redeeming qualities.
- Giovanni is the most often recurring Leader because of Gen 1 throwbacks, but there's an intimidation factor to an enemy who has no better-quality to reason with when you interfere with his business, such that he can play the big-bad on presence alone in something like Rainbow Rocket next to compatriots controlling Demi-Gods.
- I already mentioned how SM Lusamine is much better regarded, and one part of this is because despite the sympathetic history preceding her spiral, none of what she says or does during the game is meant to frame her as misunderstood: everything she does to her children and others is explicitly selfish, toxic, and wrong that she needs to try (whether or not she can) make amends for after being put in her place by you and Nebby. For argument's sake, I'm excluding Anime Lusamine here because her actions and the plot rewrite clearly aren't trying to make her a villain in the first place.
- To bring in a spin-off, Explorers Darkrai is arguably one of the most despicable villains in the series, most memorably because he goes from essentially trying to cause the Apocalypse for his own benefit to manipulating the PC and Partner into considering their own death-and-disappearance as necessary on his second attempt. The game wipes his memory at the end of the plot to handwave his recruitment, but the character he is for the entire narrative is despicable and unrepentant at the end of his agency.
- While not appearing in the flesh, SV's Professor I'm also inclined to put on this list because while their diaries show a spiral in their work, the legacy they left on the world was a Broken family and an obsession with work that jeopardized and entire Region simply in pursuit of their own hubris and fixation. The measures in place on the time machine essentially confirm that they valued their work's continuance over anything else, such that their shut-down contingencies were basically Booby Traps to eliminate whatever was trying to stop the machine.
To clarify, yes, this was a change in HGSS, where the Kimono Girls were NPC's you met without battling throughout the game and then faced in a Gauntlet before your Cover Legendary.
So I tend to be one of SwSh's biggest critics in my circle, but I do need to address something here (because ironically it almost aligns with my own different-but-still-significant criticism of this theme).
Leon (and the story by extension) aren't saying to ignore the energy crisis, just not to rush into things literally the night they're talking.
Leon's response to me always came across as "I will help you with the match, but could you ask me to do this after the big public event we've been preparing for months for and will raise concerns over canceling?"
Rose and the story never present a counter to Leon's question of "what difference is one day going to make?" to suggest Rose's urgency is anything but his own rush into the matter, despite this not just affecting him with his plan OR the problem itself. I could almost read this (accidentally or otherwise) as a message about how taking an immediate, volatile solution doesn't necessarily solve a systemic problem compared to a long-term and collaborative effort (something very prescient at the time and at present), but then Rose's plan DOES solve the energy crisis for Galar, essentially sweeping the problem away rather than leaving it on the table for the cast to say "Rose was insane, but this is a real issue we need to tackle going forward."
