>>26658400I can see all your points, and I like your perspective on Team Flare. I also see how I wasn't very clear.
>>26658586This sums up my problems with Team Flare, all that being said. The deeper you go into a pokemon game, the more the grunts believe in their cause. The problem was, all of Flare's members' beliefs were childish and greedy. Team Plasma's dedicated members, even the oblivious, stubborn ones, were admirable in how dedicated they were to N and Pokemon.
As you got later into the game, sure you still got the standard "hurr durr I'm a Grunt and I'm going to beat you," but then you'd run into a member who'd comment on how happy the Pokemon in the environment you're in seem, or who'd question your values as a trainer. This added a lot of depth to them and kept each encounter from stagnating.
I got really tired of Team Flare by the end of the game, on the other hand, simply because all the members essentially made the same point/didn't show a very varied personality.
It seemed like tonally, Gamefreak wanted Flare to seem like evil jokes the whole way through. Whereas when you fight the upper members of Plasma, there's no dialogue to suggest that they're funny or hypocritical -- more that they're so passionate about a cause they can't see the errors of their own ways.
