This article contains a ton of spoilers for Pokémon Sun and Moon . If you aren’t caught up, read another guide instead .
Every Pokémon game has a few things in common: you pick one of three starters, beat a bunch of strong trainers, fight the elite four and fight off a bunch of goons fighting under some sort of “team.” Every single one of these groups has some sort of evil scheme in the works: Team Rocket wanted to take over the world, Team Magma and Aqua wanted to shape it in their own image and Team Plasma just wanted to free all your Pokémon.
The newest Pokémon Sun and Moon games have a ton of entirely new stuff, but still don’t break tradition. Team Skull, the newest addition to the Pokémon Legion Of Doom, are a group of punks who want nothing more than to steal other people’s Pokémon and make money. While other teams were more altruistic and had a set goal, Team Skull’s mainly did it for the lulz. They aren’t on Alola to save mankind or destroy it, they just want to take your Slowpoke, while throwing their hands around.
Team Skull members are more stupid than malicious. On route 10, you catch a pair of them kicking a bus stop sign for no actual reason. They like to be bad for bad’s sake, and I think it’s more sad than anything. Some of these guys just never got a chance in the world and now they are just resorting to random vandalism. Team Skull members are just impoverished youth, the dregs of Alola that formed their own posse.
Po Town has been taken over by the members of Team Skull, and it’s your job as a trainer to wipe them out. After talking to a bunch of them, I realized what the problem was. One Team Skull trainer said that they never got to travel around catching Pokémon as a kid, and that’s why they joined Team Skull. Another just wanted to mess stuff up “the Team Skull way.” Unlike other Pokémon game teams, Team Skull members are just dicks.
In the Pokémon world, there doesn't seem to be a lot of chances for education. There’s a trainer school on every continent, but where do you go when you need to learn your multiplication tables and not what Faerie Pokémon are weak against? This lack of an education leads a lot of youth down the wrong path, choosing to take Pokémon instead of forming bonds with them, themselves.
Think of Team Skull members like entitled hipsters. Instead of iPhones and Starbucks, they have Raticates and Zubats. They just want to be taken seriously, but they dress like morons in black. They want to stand out, but they all the dress the same and have the same pink haircut.
Unlike other games, Team Skull really aren’t the bad guys. The Aether Corporation uses them to gather Pokémon so that they can do evil things. Team Skull’s boss, Guzma, is a hapless wit working for Luasmine, the leader of Aether Corp. Guzma is so ridiculous, that he actually gets dragged into the Ultra Beast’s dimension to protect Luasmine and then ends up getting scared shitless. She bonds with an Ultra Beast to gain power, while he shakes in his gold chain.
I feel for the Team Skull members. Not everyone can fit into the near-utopian Alola and crime might be the only chance to survive. With little education, a moronic boss and cruddy Pokémon, it’s no wonder that pink haired girls and bandana-wearing boys feel the need to revolt against the system.
