>>34983894>not taken seriously in-gameHow are they not? If anything they had the strongest presentation of all until that point. They sold themselves as an alternate energy research company, so the lack of involvement of figures of authority and powerful trainers made more sense than with previous generations, and people trusted or were indifferent of them.
Ironically that was the same generation that introduced the Interpol and had Cynthia trailing them, they were under suspect despite their cover.
Team Rocket was explicitly evil, but everyone seemed to accept them as some sort of "that's just how things are" and avoided them kinda like Yakuza in real life, but it's weird considering there were so many people that could have helped stop them starting with the gym leaders. I don't understand how they could take over Saffron city so easily.
Spe making gym leaders affiliated with Team Rocket as much as people hate to admit it because it "sounds edgy" actually fixes this, because it's easier to think that Team Rocket would just have gym leaders and the pokemon association on their payroll than somehow their shitty trainers with zubats forcefully taking their cities and making them work for them.
Aqua and Magma didn't present themselves as evil, but their plan was so bewilderingly stupid and would have caused mass extinction and nobody is helping. Again Spe fixes this by making Archie the director of the TV station so he was in a position he could manipulate what information people get about each team, and Magma were a bunch of poorfag hobos in a cave.
After Team Galactic, every antagonist has had a cover and I'm glad. Plasma were activists, Flare was a technology development company, and Aether was a pokemon sanctuary.
