Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire have two villain teams that have different (terrible) plans to save the planet, but Maxie of Team Magma has the smarter of the two. Both plans are short-sighted and foolish, but Maxie at least has the survival and thriving of mankind in mind for the goal of expanding the world’s landmass. Meanwhile, Archie’s plan would just make the planet’s problems even worse, as well as potentially wiping humanity off the face of the earth.
The antagonist teams of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire are, respectively, teams Magma and Aqua, who wish to save the world from ecological disaster with their own unique brands of head-scratching scheme. Archie of Team Aqua plans to expand the ocean in a misguided bid to solve global warming, while Maxie of Team Magma plans on expanding land mass to give human and Pokémon kind more space to thrive. As truly horrific as the world of Pokémon can get, these two plot points are just flat-out ridiculous. However, Maxie’s plan at least has a slightly firmer foothold in logic.
Using Groudon to expand the landmass of the planet would introduce a ton of environmental repercussions the likes of which humankind would be completely unprepared for. However, in terms of Maxie’s goal, it would indeed expand the landmass of the planet, and that landmass would eventually be able to be settled by humans and Pokémon. So far, so dumb, but it’s at least a tad less catastrophic.
Maxie’s Plan In Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire Is Superior Based On Science
The question was originally posed by Fork_Master on Reddit, and subsequent discussion concludes little beyond both plans being terrible. Groudon is a Pokémon whose powers and lore revolve around lava, so using him to expand the landmass of certain continents to give the growing human population more room to breathe isn’t the worst plan. Groudon may not belong to the most powerful legendary trio in Pokemon, but controlling the flow of magma is definitely impressive on its own. Magma has expanded landmasses before, most recently seen with the formation of the island Hunga-Tonga Hunga-ha’apai in the South Pacific (as shown via Planet.com) by underwater volcanic activity in 2015.
This having been said, while Maxie’s plan for the world is fundamentally flawed and executed poorly, just like Archie’s, the relationship between his methods and his goals is significantly more solid. Cooled magma is fertile, and landmasses created from it quickly become part of the surviving community’s way of life. It wouldn’t solve anything long-term by any stretch, but it’s a more stable plan than solving the crisis of rising water levels and temperatures by simply adding more water.
Neither Archie nor Maxie’s plans in Ruby and Sapphire are actually sustainable solutions, because otherwise, it would be hard to justify standing against them. But giving these two villain teams more interesting motivations than simple conquest is one of the improvements to the formula that makes Hoenn the best region in Pokemon. However, it cannot be stated clearly enough, Maxie’s plan makes far more sense than Archie’s, making him the superior of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire’s two antagonists.
Sources: Fork_Master/Reddit, Planet.com
