>>39818562Have you even bothered reading the manga at all... or are you just focusing on SM and your head canons? Because not even the Manga did that.
The whole point of Lillie's growth is becoming strong enough to be her own person. Standing up to her mother wasn't the point, trying to save her from her own crazy shit was and she was explicit on that in SM. If Lusamine was so terrible, why was Lillie bothering getting her back to Alola?! If SM's story was about Lillie becoming independent, why did she leave her newly made friends and family and WENT BACK to her not so convincingly redeemed mother? Forgiving everything Lusamine did to the point she wanted to help her recover.... even though she is not obligated to do that.
SM's ending SHOT most of her development in the foot and people like you are ignoring this detail or excusing it.
Trying to become stronger so she can DO something when things go strait to shit WAS the whole point of her arc as USUM still delivered on. (From her letting Nebby go with the vow to become stronger, to what she said on the Murkrow bridge this time around... that is exactly like what she said on Exeggutor Island in SM. All of that build into her become a trainer and willing to fight.)
By the end of the story, she became a trainer, helped out with RR, became your partner in the battle tree and is vowing to become a stronger person.
And for Gladion, he didn't, "try to take responsibility for the Aether Foundation." He tried to clean up the mess and by the end of SM, he was FORCED into that position because Wicke couldn't take the god damn job herself. He was STUCK in the place he wanted to escape from.
He got a raw deal and USUM went out of the way to give added motive to him running away. Wanting to become stronger so he can protect his family from Ultra Space. THAT is what he was training Null for, for that moment when he can do something about it. Which in USUM, resulted in him trying to stop Lusamine from getting herself killed.
