User blog:Ordeaux26/Pure Evil Proposal - Xerosic (Anime)

Hello everyone its time for my next proposal so a while ago this villain was added to TV Tropes (this is not an argument for him) and looking back at the anime I think he has a decent chance. Today we are going to do Xerosic from the XYZ anime

This version of Xerosic is different from his game counterpart in the anime he doesn't redeem himself and loses all redeeming qualities he had.

What's The Work
Pokemon XYZ is the 19th season of the Pokemon anime involving the protagonist Ash Ketchum heads to challenge the Pokemon while dealing with Team Flare, the main villainous group of the season.

Who Is He And What Has He Done/Moral Event Horizon
For his first few appearances, Xerosic was in charge of Team Flare's attacks on Z1, or more commonly known as "Squishy". He is mesmerized by the power that Zygarde holds. After Acquiring ten Zygarde cells, he conducted an experiment utilizing their power with the Mega Evolution energy, firing a laser causing plant life to grow wildly, a result that pleased Xerosic.

Once Z2 was captured by Alain, Xerosic conducted horrible torturous experiments on it that are shown to cause it a lot of pain, the experiments cause more vines to grow wildly and cause destruction all over Kalos, endangering many humans and Pokémon. After a ton of testing during the series, Xerosic and Lysandre and Team Flare decide it’s time to move forward to the final stage.

During the Kalos league, Xerosic broke into the Lumiose Gym to set up his machines. He uses the Mega Evolution energy to control Z2, turning it into its 50% Form witch starts unleashing its vines all across Lumiose City, with the hope of them spread all across the Kalos region and eventually the entire world, killing all of humanity except for those chosen by Team Flare. Squishy also turned into its 50% in order to stop Z2, and in response Xerosic controlled it as well, causing both of the Zygarde’s to rampage.

Clemont and Clembot break into their own gym in order to confront Xerosic. Clemont is disgusted at Xerosic and that inventions are supposed to help people and Pokemon which Xerosic dismissed so the two engage in a battle while Clembot hacks into the machine controlling the Zygarde. Meanwhile, Bonnie manages frees Squishy from the mind control with the power of song, yeah the Pokemon anime is weird like that just go with it. So Xerosic is defeated and is thrown out of the gym through the trapdoor, and Clemont and Clembot shut down the machine at the expense of Clembot's memory, freeing Z2.

After the crisis was over, Xerosic came back for one last round. Intending to start up Team Neo-Flare, this actually makes him a lot like Charon who is also Pure Evil, he collected the scattered Zygarde cells with the purpose of starting everything all over again. He kidnaps Clemont, Xerosic and using the same torture method he used on Z2 attempts to brainwash him with Mega Evolution energy into his mindless solider, but Clemont fakes being brainwashed until Ash and the others came to rescue him. After losing a battle against Ash and Clemont, Xerosic attempted to flee but was caught by Clemont and arrested by Officer Jenny. Before being taken away, he asked Clemont what made him so powerful, to which Clemont informed Xerosic of The Power of Friendship. Which he takes note of, but not to heart.

When did he cross the Moral Event Horizon who knows, maybe when he tortured Z2 for days causing destruction all over Kalos. Maybe it's when he helps with the near destruction of the world, or when he tries to start it all over again and attempts to brainwash Clemont into becoming his mindless solider, so either way, he definitely crosses it.

Screen Time
Every single one of his horrible crimes is on screen, with the exception of his involvement with the Giant Rock and nearly destroying the world, but it is shown he experimented on it, but even despite that it's still an easy pass

Character's Traits/Moral Agency
Xerosic had a clearly defined personality, he is a cold, ruthless, somewhat sadistic, failure intolerant genius, who loves conducting “research” to discover new things no matter how much it hurts People or Pokemon and takes great pleasure in doing it

There is never any indication he lacks a moral agency he is a regular human that never shows any signs of insanity, in fact, he papers calm at pretty much all times.

Individuals
While Xerosic is a member of Team Flare he stands out as especially heinous in an already terrible organization and after it was disbanded, he tries to start everything again by himself making him stand out as an individual

Redeeming Qualities/Migrating Factors
Xerosic on the surface would seem to have a Freudian excuse just like Lysandre and the rest of Team Flare. But this is only on the surface he does not demonstrate the same disillusionment with humanity, nor any well-intentioned vibes that Lysandre has. He's in it solely For Science. And even then he is never played for sympathy and is far past the point of it mattering.

It is possibly shown he has some respect for Clemont, but this is more respect for his inventing and it doesn't matter because he doesn’t care about Clemont because he attempts to brainwash him into his mindless solider.

He has a Crobat but that doesn’t matter because we don’t know how Crobat evolved after all Cyrus exists

General Standard
Considering what he has done, I would say he passes the general standard, but I won’t repeat myself.

In-Story Standard
This is where it gets a bit more complicated the Pokemon anime has an extremely high heinous standard like for example, note where only talking about the anime.

Hunter J, Sadistic Pokemon poacher, only interested in making as much money as possible and willing to kill anyone who gets in her way

Cyrus, a ruthless madman who wants to destroy the current universe and rebuild it in his own image being the only one who inhabited it, and unlike his game counterpart, a lot like Xerosic, loses all his redeeming qualities

Grings Kodai, evil businessman, who is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants, which includes kidnapping a baby Pokémon to force its mother to do whatever he wants and later threatening to kill the same baby Zorua in-front of its mother

Alva, a man who just wanted to rule over the Azoth Kingdom who created the Mega Wave a device that painfully traps Pokemon in here mega form. And later sets the fortress on a collision course on the kingdom after his plans fail as an act of spite.

Lysandre, Xerosic’s boss while not Pure Evil does deserve a mention because he is the one who instigated the near destruction of the Pokemon World in order to remake for Team Flare, but unlike Xerosic his Freudian Excuse holds up and he treats his Pokemon well

But despite this I still think Xerosic still stands out, while not super unique I think he does stand out enough due to the combination of his torture of Z2 and his complicity in the near destruction of the world and attempting to start it all over again, and also his attempted brainwashing of Clemont which is not super common in Pokemon Villains. But probably the biggest thing is his resources compared to the other villains, but we will touch more on that in Individual Capability.

System Standard
While part of an evil organization Xerosic stands out as especially heinous in the organization and, other than that the Pokemon universe is not a corrupted system and his actions are treated with disgust.

Individual Capability
Xerosic comparatively has a lot fewer resources than most villains in the franchise, he isn’t a powerful businessman like Cyrus and Grings Kodai he doesn't have governmental power like Alva and he also doesn't have any Legendary Pokemon like Lysandre, or really any powerful Pokemon at all, with the exception of Zygarde which was mostly handled by Lysandre. He just has access to a bunch of advanced tech which isn’t as powerful as many of the other Villains like Alva and Hunter J.

Yet he manages to keep up with a lot of them, he exterminated on Z2 with some brutal torturous methods which caused destruction and chaos across Kalos and attempts to along with team flare destroy the entire along with Team Flare and after it fails, he attempts to start it all over again, but of course, with no team, he doesn't get very far.

Now, this is important to consider because a lot like PAMA despite the fact that he has fewer resources than a lot of the other villains he plans to do much worse, Hunter J only wanted as much money as possible, Grings Kodai wanted power and Iron Masked Marauder and Alva just wanted to take over the world or a town. The exceptions are Cyrus and Lysandre but they both have far more resources than Xerosic and he is able to keep up with them.

No Sympathy
He isn’t, played for sympathy at any point except for when Team Flare’s backstory is revealed, but I already covered that and why I don't hold up.

Verdict
I don’t really know I would personally go with yes, but I can see some arguments against him qualifying so let's see how it goes.