#venus pokemon

[cipher-legal-and-ethics-dept]

The Duality of Venus

For reasons™ I've decided to take this topic, roll with it and write a little essay. Enjoy.

So, there are two distinct sides of Venus: The sweet, lovable and attractive public persona and what's lurking behind the facade, a ruthless, cruel and evil woman. No surprise there - if you've experienced the story of Pokémon Colosseum, be it by playing it yourself, watching a playthrough or otherwise, you've seen those sides of her. Not to mention that the "sweet, popular woman who turns out to be nasty deep down" trope is a classic most of us are probably familiar with.

Now, one thing that I find interesting about the way Venus is presented in the narrative is that there is no "mask off" moment for her, at least not from the perspective of the player and player characters. She's introduced as an adversary, and we know she's with Cipher; we even get a cutscene of her talking to Nascour alongside Ein, during which it's made absolutely clear that she's with the evil faction and very much knowingly and willingly too. There is no room for error or benefit of the doubt - we know who she really is before we confront her. Instead of the surprise factor of a "mask off" moment, we get to observe a) that Venus has these two different sides, b) how she presents herself and c) how she switches back and forth depending on the situation and who she's interacting with.

Let's have a closer look at each side of Venus.

The sugar: In order to appear sweet and be loved by her audience, Venus uses several tactics. First is her appearance: She has those big, cute eyes; the light brown shades of her hair and eyes are warm and remind you of pleasant things like caramel; she wears pink and white to suggest youthful, girly innocence; her outfit is very princess- or queen-like, not at all suited for combat or suggesting that she could be threatening; overall she's conventionally attractive.

Secondly, Venus talks to her audience in a charming, endearing, even cutesy manner. Her language is overall gentle and sanitized, she acts surprised and shocked by the presence of "spies" in The Under and later expresses disappointment rather than anger when said spies aren't caught as fast as she wants them to, and she includes calls for action - right from the influencer handbook - by asking everyone to cooperate. Her catchphrase "Hi, everyone! It's me, your Venus! Everyone's Venus, that's me!" warrants a post of its own, so for the purposes of this one I'll keep it short: Classic manipulative influencer language, attempting to create a parasocial bond with the audience by inserting herself into their lives and suggesting a personal connection ("your Venus").

It's evident that Venus knows what she's doing when it comes to being a public figure and she's adored by most citizens of The Under, sometimes to the point of fanaticism.

The spice: While Venus doesn't change her appearance throughout the game, her way of speaking drastically does once she talks to her Cipher colleagues. She refers to Wes and Rui as "a couple mice", which is dehumanizing language that can be read as hinting at her view of other people either as tools or animals beneath her, to be either used or hunted down as it suits her. This may be supported by her flippant statement that "it's nothing to worry about". She then proceeds to rather violently describe her plans to deal with the situation - "We'll catch them right away, pulverize, and mash them up." - and giggles about it. Yes, Venus might not mean that literally, but it's certainly a choice of words and a mental image she finds delightful and/or funny. She has a knack for violence, regardless of whether she would do it herself or have others do it for her.

As for Venus using people as tools, her entire act is too purposeful to make it seem like an accident or unintended consequence that some people in The Under are straight up obsessed with her and declare things such as "After Pokémon, I love Lady Venus the most!". She clearly knows what she's doing and fosters such connections deliberately (see above).

Aside from this, she appears to be venal to a certain degree (though the resemblance between this term and her name is coincidental, not the same root), since she talks about receiving a reward for eliminating Wes and Rui from Nascour. Also, while the details of whatever deals Venus has with Cipher behind the scenes are unknown, it may be assumed that she acquired her current status and position not least due to Cipher's influence and access to resources, supporting her in her rise to fame and stardom.

Conclusion: Venus is not so nice. What's new. Her character is a succinct commentary on celebrity culture and idolization, warning us that the people we adore are imperfect at best and straight up evil at worst, and we should watch out for their real selves shining through.

With all of this in mind, another interesting aspect is Suicune being the Legendary Beast in Venus' possession. Its Pokédex entries state that it has the ability to purify murky waters, which I've always seen as an allegory for what her role in The Under could have been like: Using her power and influence to inspire people and better the lives of The Under's inhabitants. But just like her Suicune is a Shadow Pokémon, Venus, too, is corrupt. Instead of helping her people like Duking does for Pyrite Town, she keeps them under her spell and, by extension, Cipher's control. Her appearance of purity and sweetness is just that: An appearance, a facade she weaponizes.

So - is the evil Venus the real Venus? Or is it yet another layer and the real Venus is somewhere underneath her corruption? Are the two sides she has part of the real her or is there a third one altogether? Those are questions for the realm of headcanons, I'd say. What we see in canon might lean more towards the former, but we simply don't know enough about her personally. Looking forward to talking about my made-up Venus lore sometime in the future :D

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts!

[wantednuzlocke]

Diving into 2025 with a teaser art

[plusie]

🌱 - grass type sitting cuties!!

[rusty-eevee]

[retrogamingblog2]

Sailor Moon Eeveelution Pins made by fromJae

[mooflettes]

Finally got to meet you

At long last, I got to meet you<3

[lopuiiart]

Cipher Admins - Colosseum

[milliemuus]

Area Zero after Kieran attempts to use the Master Ball on Terapagos and failing, causing Terapagos to transform into it's 19th type and take out everyone in it's vicinity

[shadowpuppetteer]

They have major Squirtle energy.

[ranposweetworld]

Pokedex number #455 Carnivine x

xxx / x - x / xxx

[pokemon-npcs]

[boom-doodles]

The final piece,,,

[rodentrap]

kieran aus sketches

@pollyannawog - Terapagos!Kieran

@milliemuus - PV!Kieran

@angelabsol - Kieranpon (KP'sNGS version)

@basilcatchup - Selkie!Kieran

@foxzutheone - Hakkyo!AU (Glitchpon)

[rusty-eevee]

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! I had a really great day yesterday with my family!

I've been working on improving my art this year, so I've actually been trying to learn backgrounds. I based this one a lot on Steven Universe.

[lasloser-mc-useless]

I drew djinn

[ravinoforre]

I finally jumped on the trend too, this has been in my head for days lmao