#and idk maybe im being too generous given the early games relied on 'useless adult' tropes but that implies to me that like

[2oul2ilver]

About Gio in masters, I found another rather dubious line in one of his pokemon center conversations: "if you want to protect your dear pokemon, you'll need to be strong. No matter what that takes" . Why do I have a strong impression that he's projecting here?. Maybe it implies that he originally started Team Rocket to get strong enough to also protect his kid but power ended going over his head.

I nearly took a screenshot to answer this since that's what I'm used to doing with replies help

But ooooooooh yeah, I feel like in conjunction with the dialogue I posted there's some heavy implications there. I initially took it way more literally/at face value more bc depending on where he was in his life, it could EASILY be about a pokemon he lost.

But you raise an excellent point, he has a son (i somehow always forget this about him and silver lmao) and that's also pretty realistic that his son - or possibly even his wife/the woman he loved - needed that strength, needed that protection, and somewhere he failed, or came damn close to it. And thus turned to forming Team Rocket.

Given Silver's mom is entirely out of the picture it wouldn't surprise me if it were that something happened to her. Silver.... Has Issues, but they feel more like issues picked up from having Rocket Boss Giovanni as a dad, given his similar fixation of needing to be Strong, and using living things (his pokemon) as a means to an end, in the way Giovanni capitalizes on Team Rocket Grunts' weaknesses to achieve his personal goals.

There's so much to think about with PokeMas Giovanni, it's such a refreshing change from his distant Evil portrayals in other series. Makes him feel human but not even necessarily in some oversympathizing woobifying way, since he clearly speaks from some sort of bad experience but seems. Pretty accepting of his current direction in life.

I'll probably post the dialogue you're referencing here once I find it if only for my own archives, and this rate I'm starting to wonder if, using his son's age and what we know about the timeline of team rocket, I could work backwards to sort out how long he has 'turned to evil to survive' bc I feel like that'd be a telling aspect as well....

#bc we dont know how long team rocket existed Before the events of rby/frlg BUT #i don't feel like any of the situations encountered were sustainable or would have gone without someone else's intervention? #and idk maybe im being too generous given the early games relied on 'useless adult' tropes but that implies to me that like #tr's spike in activity had been recent #hmmm i think mewtwo was implied connected to tr in the games as well as anime too so maybe that'll help more #....maybe that's a LOT more connected directly to this convo if im remembering correctly #much to think on once im awake more and have time to do research #spins giovanni in a microwave #magicalgirl300 #giovanni #pokemon masters ex #since it's about him #also im Sure someone else has done speculative tls but I wanna do my own attempt and see how close I can get lol #but others have better eyes for setting details in the games than i do so i'll probably be off base lol #blablablah