>>50785698Giovanni was basically a mob boss with Pokemon. He was head of a crime syndicate for money and power, which are very understandable motives.
Maxie and Archie both had ideals of what they felt the world should look like, so they planned to use an ancient Pokemon to reshape the world into that image. However, they both failed to realize that the ancient Pokemon was strong enough to reset the world to zero and destroy all current life, which they didn't want. Their goals were understandable, but the lack of knowledge made them almost accidentally destroy the world.
Cyrus wanted to use an ancient Pokemon to reshape the rules of the world to fit his ideals. However, as someone who had more in common with machines than people, this was bound to be a negative for everyone else.
Ghetsis pretended to pursue a noble cause when in reality all he wanted was power by control. His motives were clear but unrealistic since there's no way everyone would give up their Pokemon.
Colress' whole thing was "for science!", so in that sense it's a very simple motive. And in the end he seemingly got exactly what he wanted with no consequences. Most successful villain in the franchise.
Lysandre wanted to preserve the beauty of the world, which in the end seemed to amount to killing all Pokemon and everyone who wouldn't pay him a very large sum of money, meaning he wanted to kill all the poor people since he thinks they're too needy. He was a rich blowhard who tried to make his whole scheme sound way more noble than it was.
SuMo Lusamine was basically insane, so her UB obsession is hard to argue with. USUM Lusmine is still kind of unhinged with the Pokemon experimentations, but at least has a more noble endgame of stopping Necrozma from destroying Alola.
Guzma was a disillusioned street punk who had some talent, but started out being able to learn from his failures. He grew near the game's end.
Rose was a rich, eccentric weirdo whose true motive was to make himself look good
