I was talking about this last night on twitter, but Team Skull in general and their dynamic with Aether Foundation is actually pretty amazing, even better than the straightforward but effective rivalry between Magma and Aqua. (spoilers ahead here, be warned)
Now, throughout the early game, it's made pretty clear that Team Skull is one of the goofiest teams to date, and pretty much universally incompetent to the point where other NPCs and even Plumeria can't really take them seriously. There's always been something of a sense of humor attached to most teams, but sometimes it just doesn't seem clear whether the game actually wants us to take the bad guys seriously or not, the worst case of this being Team Flare, who I simply could not be assed to care about at all.
But Team Skull is always making a spectacle of themselves, everyone knows it, and while it's funny to watch it's also a bit… sad. And this trace of sadness really comes to light when you get to Po Town, where it's finally made clear just what bad shape Team Skull is really in. Like, it's bad. It's worth noting that most other syndicates (including Aether Foundation) have hella finances and usually have a big, fancy, technologically-advanced base. What does Guzma have for his gang? A slummy, run-down "mansion" that apparently doesn't even have enough room for everyone since there are also grunts lying about outside, sleeping on the ground in the pouring rain. And the grunt running the pokémon center who demands all of ₽10 to heal your team? I felt like crying.
It should be clear at this point that whatever is going on, Team Skull aren't the real bad guys. They simply don't have the resources to do anything more than run around and cause trouble, and Aether knows this and takes advantage of it. They've been using Team Skull as a scapegoat in order to give themselves good publicity while they run the real show underground. It just goes to show how cunning, manipulative and dangerous Lusamine can really be.
But as for Guzma himself, he might actually just be one of my favorite bosses. While I wouldn't go as far as to call him a father figure, the dude's a hard guy (and while it may have been because I was underleveled, but also a pretty damn hard battle) and does do his best for his fellow outcasts and failures, as well as his pokémon. He's probably one the more if not the most well-rounded leader figures in the series, in all honestly. And, oof, I did not know about that past until just now. Lusamine also seems to have it pretty bad too, being severely mentally ill and having lost her husband who she was dependent on, but it's a lot harder to feel sympathy for her considering how she chose to have children and then treated them as objects.
I'm just. Man, I'm so glad GameFreak actually really tried with their characterization and storywriting this time around. Because XY was garbage. I appreciate it so much.
