>>55635219One of the main themes is the contrast between its two main characters. Phos has a very terse style to reflect her frustration and isolation; she's strong, but also vulnerable, calling to mind the gnostic themes of the untamable feminine spirit versus the masculine desire to dominate that forms the core of her 1995 source inspiration. On the other hand, while writing Franco I ask myself "what is the single most verbose, pretentious thing I can say in this situation?" He's a Paldean Champion-rank valedictorian and uses corporate influence as a cudgel, but also sabotages himself because he wants to be proven right more than he wants to be proven the winner--as far as he's concerned, he's already won. Convincing Phos is the ultimate test of his belief that the world would be better if it just listened to him.
Establishing that contrast between them does most of the heavy-lifting for me in each episode.
Fun fact: literally all of their back-and-forth dialogue that you read was improvised as I was writing it just by imagining how they would bounce off each other. Make of that what you will. It's important to me that the co-stars, the Pokemon, also feel like realized characters instead of fighting automatons to help capture the childhood magic of going on an adventure with strange new friends. Scrafty has the Intimidate ability as shown by how feisty it is in battle, but it also shows a gentle nature when it nuzzles up to its Trainer and reaches for her hand when it's concerned. Annihilape is a seething wall of hate that wants to cut loose, but it's a disciplined and calculating rage as a result of Franco's training--something it couldn't achieve on its own in the wild.
Life has winners and losers, but it doesn't have side characters, so I feel it's important to give even one-off characters the idea that there's more to them beyond their entry and exit of the narrative.
