* Yet again, spoilers everywhere
So now that we've taken a close look at all six main characters of Pokémon Chronicles: Zero, let's see how they fit into the main plot. I've previously stated that the main conflict is group vs. society. I've also previously discussed the fact that society's influence is not fully understood until the end of the book and is only revealed very slowly to be the cause of problems. This is just one piece of a larger pattern of information being revealed in what I feel to be the wrong order. Because I want this to be as helpful as possible, I'm going to discuss both how the plot currently stands and how it could unfold if the author were to switch from first to rotating third person perspective and do some rearranging.
The prologue of the book introduces the main conflict of the book... or at least it seems to do so. It states outright that the land of Heroica is in trouble: "The wind stops, the sea is wild, and the Earth begins to rot." As we see later on in the book, all of this is true. The next sentence, however, throws everything into question: "The ancient catastrophe, a plague known as the Anima, is rising." Now, to a first time reader, this seems to be on par with everything that he or she has read so far. He or she will naturally think that this Anima plague is what is causing the natural world to become unbalanced, that Anima is a force of evil. A returning reader knows that it is not. This passage turns out to be not omniscient narration but a quote from a book entitled Heroica Revival Project Guide: Project Zero. At a guess, I'd say this was written by Panzer, the Flygon whose evil experiments led to the creation of "Project Zero", also known as Crystal. That means that we're not actually supposed to trust any of this.
The problem with having secrets and hidden information playing in the first paragraphs your readers encounter is that a first time reader will not be expecting such deception. He or she might easily take it as wholesale truth, which will cause confusion for him or her later on when our heroes start using anima power. Having just read a description that talks about the problem being a lack of bestia, he or she might conclude that anima and bestia are the same thing or that the author made some kind of mistake by using the wrong word in this section. A more suspicious reader might take it to be truth at first but notice the paragraph later on that seems to be indicating a totalitarian society of the type that might easily spread propaganda. Such a reader might arguably be the closest to being correct, but he or she also runs the risk of then doubting everything that was previously stated, including the crisis of the natural world and the prophecy of the shining warriors, both vital to the story.
Another problem I have with this prologue is its inclusion of that prophecy, not because it isn't important for the reader to understand something about the shining warriors but because it outright tells us in paragraph six (yes, I mean the sixth paragraph of the entire book) that the shining warriors are destined to succeed. If the main conflict of the book is about the shining warriors trying to achieve their goal and I as a reader already know that they will achieve that goal, any kind of tension I might have felt is lost. Does the book try to throw this into question later on? Absolutely, but I'm not sure how effective it is given the power of this first impression. The truth of the matter is that there have been many generations of shining warriors and that a good number of them have died without completing their quest at all, but the prologue gives off an impression that's entirely incorrect and will cause a first time reader to carry this incorrect assumption until he or she reaches a confusing correction.
Now, it might seem like I'm nitpicking here because I've spent probably three times as many words in my discussion of this section than the section in question even has, but I really believe that it's important for a book to start out on the proper footing. The story seems to be trying to do things like introduce the concept of the shining warriors and establish stakes, both very important. In giving hints at a less than ideal government (is it referring to a government?), it might also be trying to introduce society as an antagonist, but, if so, it does so very ineffectively.
How might things be set up differently? Well, rather than getting narration of dubious origin, why doesn't the author show us what's at stake?
The book could start off from the perspective of Lucca, who has the most firsthand experience of natural decay caused by lack of bestia. Simply showing a scene from his homeland of Reverie would be enough for the readers to see a place in dire straits, and Lucca possesses enough understanding to be able to zoom out and know that the entire world is at risk of such decay. Perhaps we could get a scene of a young Lucca wondering why everything is falling apart around him while his father steps in to explain and to paint a picture of Heroica below. Perhaps the scene could end with a brief explanation of the shining warriors in the form of a story told to a child (which Lucca would be). Maybe little Lucca even imagines himself becoming one of those shining warriors someday.
On the other hand, if the author is set on starting off with Crystal, perhaps the book could have a prologue that takes place before Suzie steals her and before she loses her memories. There could be a scene in which an unnamed Flygon refers to her as "Project Zero" and tells her about the dark future she has planned. As an adult talking to a child, we could again believably get very basic information about the world and the state of the bestia crisis, as well as the shining warriors, and we would even see that there is at least one evil character who poses a serious threat to the shining warrior journey.
Perhaps the prologue could even be adjusted to include a brief scene with all six of our main characters: Little Lucca in the kingdom of Reverie, little Crystal soon after her creation by Panzer, little Mimia starving from the lack of food in his environment and driven to take a turn towards the feral side of his nature, little Megan facing the death of her parents, little Brine alone and perhaps facing some kind of discrimination or teasing or a veiled threat due to her nature as a water marked Pokémon, little Shelly getting engaged at an age that's far too young while the author sprinkles in hints that he's being manipulated without his knowledge. All of these stories stem from problems that are due to the bestia crisis or what caused the bestia crisis, even if it's not readily apparent: Reverie falling apart, lack of food, tension between the different races that leads Alver to see Undine as less than himself and the Undine to have laws against Pokémon that led to the killing of Brine's parents and Queen Gladys to hate the Aska and acquire a taste for conquest and FinVarra the king of the Aska to seek domination over all other races. All of these stories could be carefully woven together in a way that introduces the conflict of the story and hints at what is to come.
As the book currently stands, we get a brief explanation from Suzie the Kangaskhan in response to Crystal admitting to having broken the law against using Pokémon attacks. This is fine for world building, but it is a bit unbelievable that she never would have heard about this before. The next time we see the bestia issue is during the fight with Edvard, which is good in that it shows us first hand that using up bestia has negative consequences. It's even worse that Edvard is revealed to be doing this chronically, making him a serious threat to local bestia, but I feel like this fact could be emphasized a bit more. Currently, the focus seems more on his threat to Crystal than his threat to the world as a whole, which only makes sense if the most important conflict is about Crystal or if Crystal is a really important character to the greater plot (which the reader certainly wouldn't think before she's revealed to be anything special in any way). It's also a bit problematic that the connection between bestia and nature isn't fully revealed until chapter 3, meaning first time readers might not understand the full extent of the threat posed by Edvard.
The next plot point also has to do with basic worldbuilding, as is obviously both important and necessary when the plot revolves around a brand new concept. It's revealed that the lack of bestia results in certain Pokémon being turned into savages, which is another thing that shows obvious harm to wide swaths of Heroica's population. Unfortunately, again, these feral Pokémon are shown mostly in terms of the threat they pose to Crystal. The book doesn't really prompt us to think about how these feral Pokémon have affected the greater Pokémon population or about how these feral Pokémon themselves must be faring. If I'm allowed to speculate again, I would say that a little more focus on Mimia would provide a really fascinating view into this particular aspect of the conflict.
The next plot point is a lowering of tensions... or it's supposed to be. We get the first shining warrior trial activating and five of our heroes facing it together and being granted a special power. The problem is that a first time reader (unless he or she took an educated guess based on the book's description, which the text of the book should not be reliant on) would have no idea that this is part of a quest to save the world. Even more annoyingly, Angel appears and spends a long, rambling conversation refusing to explain anything at all for seemingly no reason. When she finally does explain, it's in bits and pieces scattered throughout more rambling or pointless arguments among the group and is put on hold completely because Lucca is hungry. Angel says she needs a book in order to explain things and wants the group to meet her in the library the next morning... except she changes her mind and tells Crystal to go to the library right after their surprise meeting with Panzer. All of this seem like a lot of pointless wasting of time and misdirection, and the most frustrating thing of all is that the "big reveal" is finally summed up in one simple sentence. Oh, yes, I can see why we had to wait for this. The special book (a few sentences long) is obviously far too complicated for Angel to simply summarize for them, and it obviously reveals many surprises (actually it's almost entirely things that the reader and our group of warriors have already been able to slowly and agonizingly piece together).
Honestly, I would love to eliminate all of this and have perhaps one character of the group who hasn't heard the legend. It seems logical enough that this would be a common story, perhaps told to children at bedtime or taught in schools. If any character doesn't know about it, I would bet on Crystal because it would make sense that Suzie might consider the shining warriors a painful subject and would also want to shield all of her adopted children from the truth of their origins. I could possibly see Megan being included as well due to her deprived childhood and having Crystal as her only friend, but Lucca and Mimia do already know about this and Shelly probably would have heard about it at some point during his travels or his time at the school, especially given his intelligence and commitment to studies. Having just one or two characters in the dark would provide an opportunity for them to quickly be filled in along with the reader. Alternately, if the reader has already heard all that they need to hear during the prologue, it wouldn't be difficult to find a way that even Megan and Crystal would have heard this before and so we could spare the reader from getting the same information twice.
So at this point, the book has established that the shining warriors must journey to the six (make that five now) trials in order to restore the bestia to the world. Things seem more hopeful than they did previously (unless you were already counting on this solution due to the prologue telling you these shining warriors would succeed in saving the world), but tensions rise again when the group realizes there are meant to be six warriors and their group is only five. This is some good tension because it threatens the mission right away.
The next threat to the mission comes when Crystal opposes the journey, which threatens to shrink the group even further away from the needed six. Unfortunately, the book currently doesn't strike the tone of this being a problem, which it could do easily if this section were told from the perspective of a character who already cares about the greater mission and wants the group to get together (I'm thinking Lucca).
After the group gets together and starts on the journey, there are a few more minor threats to group unity. Megan and Crystal seem to be fighting all the time, Crystal is still unsure about being there, and the group members obviously don't all trust each other yet. The biggest threat of all is Mimia nearly drowning. Obviously a dead shining warrior would mean game over for the group, although I do wish this point was made a bit more clearly. It would be nice if it were stated that all six members are needed in order for the quest to be completed and that not a single one of them can possibly be replaced. This on its own would do a lot to ensure that dangerous situations carry the proper amount of tension in regard to the greater plot.
Another thing I wish is that Kusha's backstory was reflected on a bit more. My impression of her was that she was really creepy, and I didn't like her at all. After rereading, I caught about one sentence where Crystal puts things together really nicely and concludes that Kusha having been forced to evolve early is actually an effect of the bestia crisis, and then it clicked in my head. Is the author trying to suggest that Kusha became messed up because of her premature evolution which is in turn because of the dangers that she faced from an early age due to the bestia crisis? Is he trying to show her creepiness as just one of the many terrible results of the state of the world? If that is indeed true, it would be great if it were also a lot more clear.
Tensions decrease significantly when the group finds Brine. Unfortunately, it's a completely random encounter achieved without any real effort on the part of the group, but they do have to step in to save her from the Pokémon attacking her. Conveniently, the trial she's off to complete is also a shining warrior trial, which came as a great relief to me because I was worried about the entire thing being a detour from the main plot. There is some increased tension with the reveal of black water and more threats of death, but the group pulls through. Overall a good continuation there.
The next increase in tension is a confusing one, however. We see that the village the group was passing through gets set on fire, but we're led to believe that Edvard set it. It's only much later that we learn that a different bad guy was behind it (Alver? Or was it Panzer? I can't even remember, and that's a bad sign). This makes it really tough to tell how the event is significant in terms of the greater plot.
Regardless, we know that Lucca ends up killing Edvard as a result, and this leads to tension within the party. In my opinion, these tensions could stand to be played up even more, especially if the reader has been at least given a hint at Lucca's true reason for killing the Zweilous. I would love to see Lucca's true thoughts and motives be hinted at or revealed in pieces, if not revealed to the reader outright and used as dramatic irony. It would make for a lot of interesting tension throughout the journey because the reader would constantly be wondering whether he's truly committed to the right goals and whether he might pose a threat to the very mission he cares about so deeply.
This is the point in the story at which the group meets Azeth, my personal favorite character. I love her scientific explanations of bestia and the startling revelations she shares with the group. She knows that the planet is built to be able to sustain both nature and Pokémon attacks or at least that it's meant to be able to. This is a seriously important fact that switches the conflict from being vs. nature to vs. society. I would actually love to know this even sooner. Maybe there could be a short scene in which the group or one member of it meets Azeth at the academy. This would make sense because she is, after all, a scientist. She could be a professor who mostly researches rather than teaches. She could be visiting in order to talk to another professor or borrow an important book. She could even replace one of the throwaway characters like Abe Lucario, who is present in all of one scene after Crystal and Megan arrive. I think it would work out well for her to make a brief but early appearance and only reappear in a significant role later on in the story. It would also eliminate the awkwardness of the "oops, we basically just kidnapped you" scene because at least one of them would know who she is and naturally want to help. It would also mean that the reader would care a lot more in the scene where she's discovered to be gravely injured.
The next significant hurdle for the group to overcome is getting arrested as a result of Megan storming the stage in an attempt to murder Alver. This is the first point at which Megan's plot intersects with the greater one, not counting minor tensions caused by her arguments with other group members. Except for a scene in which Megan's backstory is established (which, again, I would love to see early on in some form or another), I would guess this would be the first occasion in which it would serve the purposes of the story to slip into Megan's point of view. The tone should also be more clear during this scene than it is currently. I would guess that this event should be seen as an overall negative, as Megan's obsession overwhelms her and later threatens to separate her from the group. I would love to see a scene from Lucca's perspective in which he attempts to deal with this situation after what has happened, from wondering what the truth is given his relationships to both Megan and Alver to struggling to find a way to have both the shining warrior quest and his own secret mission continue unimpeded.
Another important event is the death of Phoenix, but, as I've discussed in both Lucca and Crystal's chapters, this is not understood in anything like its true importance. As the plot currently stands, it's a minor incident because the group isn't suspected for very long and there are no apparent effects on their ability to continue their quest. This could be a lot more important than it currently is if it were handled differently from Lucca's perspective or Crystal's or even from each one in turn. It could be spun as Crystal wondering if it's her (in a more believable way than at present) and the reader wondering along with her until tension is diffused. It could be shown as part of Lucca's secret mission, which threatens everything. We could know the facts from Lucca's perspective and see what Crystal thinks. Maybe Crystal reveals to the group or just to Lucca what happened to her. Maybe she starts to wonder if she needs to turn herself in or undergo some kind of treatment, which would prevent her from completing her part in the mission. Maybe Lucca just starts to feel guilty about allowing her to take on the blame and finds a way to prove it wasn't her. Again, there are a lot of ways this could be handled in order to show it as a significant threat to the greater mission. At the very least, we do see that this event has turned a number of Pokémon against the shining warriors, which is good for increasing tensions even as the book currently stands.
The next trial is at Celadon Island, meaning that Shelly should probably get his chance to take the stage at last. His internal conflicts threaten the group as a whole when he goes off to complete the trial by himself, obviously threatening his life. This is also the scene where Crystal "dies", but I think I covered that in plenty of detail during her chapter.
More signs of bestia decay are shown at the site of the next trial, keeping tensions high and reminding the readers of the stakes that are still in place. This trial is Mimia's, although Lucca ends up getting the amulet. There doesn't seem to be any danger of anyone dying here because Lucca and Mimia know the Pokémon running it, who seem friendly enough. The real danger is of the group turning against Lucca as a result of what is said by these "old friends", but, as the story currently stands, the reader isn't equipped to understand that. Seeing this from Lucca or Mimia's perspective would accomplish a lot.
The confrontation with Queen Gladys threatens the lives of every character except for Shelly, who is absent until the end. It also ends up revealing vital information about greater societal tensions at play in the world. Again, we get a scene of Lucca almost killing her that can't currently be understood in the proper context by a first time reader. This is followed by her truly ending up dead, which, again, could be handled differently depending upon how Phoenix's death was handled earlier.
We get further tensions involving Pokémon trying to capture the group, or at least Lucca, and we see that the orders to do so have been given by Ion and Panzer, who are both important government officials. All of this is great for the plot.
The next brief plot point comes when Feather threatens to kill Crystal, which could also take on a greater context depending upon how Crystal's plot line has been dealt with up to this point.
The next trial is a really disappointing one that decreases all tension that was built from having a trial in a secret location and doubt about whether they would be able to find it and doesn't build up any more at all. The amulet is just handed to them, and they never have to do anything at all to earn it. It is mildly interesting that it brings up an environmental angle, but it just doesn't seem to fit into the greater plot very neatly at all. This is especially true because the trash dumping has no clear connection to the bestia crisis. It just seems like a separate issue entirely.
The next plot point occurs at the city of Vile, which is shown early on to be surrounded by black sand that's threatening the tectonic plates. That's a great build of tension right away for the entire section that takes place there. Mother Bun adds yet more fuel to our fire of society being corrupt and causing issues with bestia, and her death adds fuel in an entirely different way as the city falls apart. This is another event that is significant for both Lucca and Crystal and again depends on how this entire piece of the plot is being handled.
The next trial kick starts us into the plot with Crystal and Panzer, which I've already discussed quite a bit. In terms of the greater plot, though, this is a tricky scene because Crystal tells us that she's technically not needed for the mission anymore. According to her, none of them are important except for the ones who have yet to complete their trials. If this is true, it means a major shift in terms of what's important and what's not for the plot as a whole. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it except that it's potentially sticky.
Following this, tensions are decreasing as the group thinks that they're about to finish the quest, but it ramps back up again when it is revealed that something has gone terribly wrong. This cues into the confrontation with FinVarra and the long, long ending section of the book. I honestly think this section could be shortened through having fewer battles and side trips, but there's no doubt that tension has reached a very high point and remains that way throughout. Lucca takes the spotlight in the death of FinVarra, then Crystal takes the spotlight for her decision to restore anima to the world and sacrifice herself in the process. All of this works pretty well as is, mostly because we finally have all the information that we need in order to understand these events in their proper context. If they're handled any differently in a rewrite, it would be because of ripple effects from earlier changes.
Conclusion
I've gone on for quite a long time now. Hopefully over the last several chapters I've done a good enough job pointing out the flaws in the current plot structure of this book that what I've said in this section makes sense. With such a large and complicated plot structure, it's difficult for me as a reader rather than as the author to know exactly how it should be fixed, but I hope that I've given enough ideas. There are so many characters and plot points and just moving pieces in general that the whole thing feels like a giant puzzle. That can be an excellent thing because a story with all of these elements arranged in perfect harmony would be beautiful, but it obviously poses a large challenge to the writer who might want to take it on. All I can say is that there is significant work ahead if the writer wants to truly make this book the best that it can be, but, if he does manage to pull it off, he will have something truly impressive to show for it.