familyproblem | Canon Summary

Canon events, but only what Gladion himself experienced, and put in chronological order.

General explanations: Pokemon Adventures is called Pokemon Special in Japanese and a lot of it wasn't officially translated for a long time, hence the term "PokeSpe". Arcs (which correspond to one mainline Pokemon game or set of related games) are called "chapters", and actual chapters are called "rounds". The Sun & Moon chapter ~~hasn't been officially released in English yet~~ is only out in the weird little mini-volumes of which I only own 2 out of 12, but it has a high-quality fan translation that's pretty damn close to the official Viz release, and since it draws so heavily from the video games, all the English place/character names and terminology are known.

PokeSpe is based on but is not a direct adaptation of the games, and often reshuffles character backstories/personalities or timelines of events to fit its own story, so some elements of the games can be headcanoned relevant to PokeSpe but a lot can't. Gladion's backstory is largely similar to his gameverse counterpart (unusually so for PokeSpe tbh.) but his experiences during canon are completely different and his overall characterization has some distinct details.

Unfortunately if you don't at least kinda know the plot of the SM/USUM games then this summary will probably be incomprehensible because I do not try to explain who all the characters mentioned are or what an Ultra Space is; this post is mainly for my own reference in remembering 1) what happens in smoon chapter 2) what parts of it Gladion is actually present for, because Pokespe always runs at least three plotlines parallel to each other at any one time.

Pre-canon/Before first appearance

Five years before the chapter begins, after disagreements with Lusamine over the direction of the Aether Foundation's work, Mohn abruptly vanishes. Lusamine, Gladion, and Lillie believe he left of his own will. (In actuality, Faba pushed him into an Ultra Wormhole, but I don't think anyone ever finds out about this. Possibly in the pre-epilogue timeskip while going through Faba's stuff?)
Construction begins on Aether Paradise after Mohn's disappearance, and after it is completed, Lusamine's family takes up residence there.
Some time over three months before the chapter starts, Gladion takes Type: Null and runs away from Aether Paradise. He initially assumed that taking Type: Null away would make Lusamine give up on her plans, and presumably didn't expect to have to fight her or Ultra Beasts until later finding evidence of her continued efforts. At this point, he also believes that Lillie is ignorant as to Lusamine's plans and might be able to live a peaceful life if he removes himself and Null from the picture.
Three monthes before the chapter starts, Lillie runs away from Aether Paradise with Nebby the Cosmog. Gladion does not know about this, or that Lusamine had acquired a second Cosmog. He likely realizes that Strange Things Are Afoot shortly before the chapter begins, when Ultra Wormholes start to appear sporadically over Alola, which Type: Null would sense and react to.

Rounds 4 to 8: Iki Town Festival

Round 4 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. A festival tournament is declared in Iki Town, where the winner's prize is a role in a ritual quest that will bring them before the Tapu, the legendary guardians of the Alolan islands. Gladion enters the tournament, registering no information except his name. Null becomes agitated right before the tournament brackets are to be drawn, and Gladion leaves his participant tent to investigate the reason. He finds that a fissure had appeared in the sky north of town, but it vanishes before he can determine anything else about it.
Round 5 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion faces Hau in the second match of the tournament. He interrogates Hau about "what he's fighting for" during the battle, and gets offended when Hau says he battles for fun. He switches Null into battle to cryptically make a point about important things being at stake and how he doesn't have patience or respect for anyone making light of that. Kahuna Nanu remarks on its mask from the sidelines, wondering if it's for control, and Gladion brusquely explains that it protects everyone around it from something dangerous that would happen if the mask were removed.
Round 6 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion wins the match against Hau, then watches the subsequent match between Sun and Guzma. As Guzma leaves the stage, he makes a comment about "only taking orders from one person" - Gladion takes note of this, suspecting Lusamine might be pulling Team Skull's strings. The next match is Moon vs. Gladion. Moon opens by showing Gladion both of her Pokemon out of a sense of fair play, since his team is known from the previous match. He calls her strange for it, but in an appreciative way. While their Pokemon battle, Moon asks him about the fissure in the sky. He agrees to tell her more about what it is if she wins the match. In the meantime, he asks why she uses Poison-type Pokemon. After she explains her professional interest, he assumes they're her "test subjects", but then she says she just thinks Poison-types are cute, and he's caught off-guard.
Round 7 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion and Moon continue to talk throughout their battle, treating it as an intellectual challenge and exchange by pointing out each other's tactics. Moon notes that both his Porygon and Type: Null are "artifical" Pokemon, and asks if he has an attachment to them like her interest in Poison-types. Gladion blows off both that question and her overtures of friendship based on both of them being nerds. He then finishes the battle with a reckless maneuver, and declares that combat ability is determined not only by power and skill, but by how strong one's motivation to win is (which is again blowing off Moon's enthusiasm to befriend him because they're both nerds).
Wanting to move on to the next match, Gladion refuses a 30-minute break to let Porygon recover, and sends Null into battle against Sun. Null easily brushes off direct attacks from Sun's Litten. Sun's next strategy to break through Null's defense is an obvious re-use of a maneuver from an earlier match. Frustrated and offended by the poor attempt and by Sun's carefree attitude, Gladion has Null block the maneuver, then yells at Sun for not taking the match seriously. Sun yells back, telling Gladion to stop being so judgy about what people are or aren't dealing with just because they don't act sad. Through a series of coincidences, Sun accidentally unleashes a Z-move that knocks out Null. Having lost, Gladion immediately leaves Iki Town to find another way of meeting the Tapu.
Round 8 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. The next morning, Gladion arrives at the Ruins of Conflict, having intended to track down Tapu Koko. He instead finds Guzma, who had been waiting under the assumption Gladion would show up there. Guzma tries to sweet-talk him into joining Team Skull as an enforcer; Gladion brushes off the flattery, but agrees to join without further demands or resistance, to Guzma's surprise. Gladion does repeat what Guzma had said after his loss at the tournament, and ask if there is a higher authority that Guzma takes orders from. Guzma denies remembering having said anything of the sort, then has Gladion follow him to the team's hideout.

Rounds 11 to 14: Battle at the Ruins of Life

Before Round 11: Gladion presumably goes to a Team Skull hideout on Melemele or Akala, not their headquarters at Po Town. Though Gladion is not nearby to witness it, a fissure in the sky opens over Akala and an Ultra Beast tries to emerge, and Null may have sensed this and become agitated. The timeline so far is (Day 1 evening) Iki Town festival -> (Day 2) meeting with Guzma -> (Day 3) -> (Day 4 afternoon) Round 11.
Round 11 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion attacks the Trial Captain Kiawe, probably as he leaves his job at the Thrifty Megamart, forcing him to lead Gladion and a number of Team Skull Grunts to the Ruins of Life. The Grunts wait outside to intercept Kiawe's allies while Gladion enters the Ruins of Life and tries to capture Tapu Lele.
Round 12 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion easily wins the battle and, carrying Tapu Lele, leaves the ruins to find an injured Kiawe hastily training Sun in the use of Z-moves. Moon sees Tapu Lele unconscious and wonders if it was injured in the fight she had witnessed against the creature in the sky fissure. Gladion realizes what must have happened. Moon confronts him to ask what he's up to, and Gladion brushes her off with short answers: his goal was to capture the Tapu. Moon explains some of what she's seen and offers to work together, which Gladion seems to consider before Sun rushes up and yells at him about working with villains. Sun tries to take Kiawe's Z-Ring to use in battle, but Null quickly smashes it and Gladion starts mocking him for flailing around without a realistic plan to beat him. While he's trash-talking Sun, Kahili arrives from the sky, cuts him off, calls out his bluster, and launches a surprise attack that knocks Null off-balance. Kahili drops a Z-Ring to Sun, whose Litten unleashes Inferno Overdrive.
Round 13 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. The Z-move explodes, knocking Gladion back and damaging Null's mask. Gladion recalls Null in a panic and switches out Porygon, who knocks out Litten. He and Sun yell at each other a bit. Moon again appeals to his reason and asks to let her treat Tapu Lele's injuries. He asks her to describe Tapu Lele's battle with the creature in the rift, then after hearing about it, declares that he's not taking Tapu Lele with him so she can treat it however she wants. She asks why; Gladion says it's not strong enough for what he wanted to capture it for. In return for the information, he cryptically tells Moon that the sky fissures are exits from another world.
Before Gladion appears again in Round 14: The next day, Sun, Moon, the Professors Kukui, and the Trial Captains discuss their findings so far and reach some conclusions. The Trial Captains decide to locate and infiltrate Team Skull's headquarters to find out more about their plans.
Round 14 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion arrives at Po Town for the first time. He is immediately attacked by Plumeria and her Salazzle, to test his abilities and also to let him know she thinks he is annoying and untrustworthy. They trash-talk each other and eventually Plumeria tells Gladion that his responsibility is to guard the town.

Rounds 17 to 19: UB Battles at Po Town and Hokulani Observatory

Round 17 likely takes place 1 to 2 days after Round 14.
Round 17 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. The Trial Captains arrive at Po Town and are greeted by grunts and Guzma. Guzma quickly summons Ultra Beasts to surround them.
Round 18 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. As it starts to rain, and Team Skull grunts jeer from the sidelines, the Ultra Beasts' attacks against the Trial Captains quickly become dangerously violent. Halfway across the island, tremors can be felt from the ground and air. To speed up the fight, Guzma pulls a second Cosmog from his pocket and commands it to open more wormholes, summoning more ultra Beasts who start to catch Team Skull grunts in their attacks. Gladion appears to confront Guzma, asking who gave him the Cosmog and who he's taking orders from. Guzma refuses to answer; Gladion declares that his goal is to destroy the UBs, and moves to attack them.
Round 19 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Type: Null puts up actual resistance against the Ultra Beasts. Bombarded with questions, Gladion replies with a summary of the situation: the Aether Foundation created Null to fight UBs, and Lusamine gave Guzma a Cosmog to open wormholes with. The Trial Captains don't believe him. Moon arrives to hear Gladion out, but he's already resigned to dealing with it himself, and turns away as the fight begins in earnest and the UBs start to escape Po Town and rampage further across the island. He approaches Guzma to snap at him a bit about the situation; Guzma yells back, then gets abducted into a wormhole by a Nihilego. The Trial Captains ask Gladion how to handle the UBs, but Gladion refuses to explain, bitter that he hadn't been believed before, and takes off on Null to try to stop the escaping UBs as their rampage moves towards Malie City.
Round 22 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. The UBs move from Malie City towards Mount Hokulani, where the city's residents had been evacuated; Gladion and the Trial Captains manage to slow them down at the road leading to the mountain. Gladion and Null finally bring one of them down at Mount Hokulani, with onlookers observing that they mostly handled it themselves. Having seen Null in one of Professor Kukui's transmissions of the battle to Professor Burnet, Lillie arrives at the mountain and calls out to Gladion. One of the UBs jumps at her, and Gladion and Null intercept it, Null breaking its mask and evolving to take it down. The evolution releases a harmful blast of energy that injures Gladion, though he will not show immediate symptoms.
The siblings very quickly catch up. Lillie explains to Gladion why she left Aether Paradise; Gladion explains to the Professors Kukui that Lusamine is their mother. Lillie pulls from her bag a flute that she had taken from the labs along with Nebby. Recognizing it, and taken aback, Gladion forms a new plan of attack and tells Lillie to come with him to the Poni Island altar.

Rounds 23 to 25: The Poni Altar

Round 23 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Lillie and Gladion talk while racing across Poni Island on Silvally's back. Gladion explains what he learned about Cosmog and the altar from documents in the Aether labs, and some of the conclusions he's drawn. His goal is to take the flute to the altar to summon the "moon-calling" and "sun-eating" beasts to fight back the UBs, in place of his earlier plan to capture the Tapu. Prodded by Lillie about asking the Professors and Captains for help, Gladion insists that Lusamine's plans are a "family problem", and snaps at the suggestion of reaching out - implicitly admitting that he believes it was all his responsibility to stop, and his failure that allowed things to get this far. Before Lillie can properly unpack that, they are attacked by a UB. In the midst of the attack, Nebby slips out of Gladion's hold and flies into the air over Poni Canyon, meeting the second Cosmoem there.
(Several other groups of people are on the move in the same region at this time, unknown or not fully known to Gladion.)
Round 24 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. The two Cosmoem, visible from the ground, fly off together towards the altar. While fighting the UB, Gladion and Lillie interrupt Sun and Kahuna Hapu being confronted and interrogated about the legend of the altar by a squad of Aether Foundation employees. As Null scatters the employees, they recognize Gladion and Lillie, and the whole thing turns into a clusterfuck of questions from Sun and Hapu. Hapu (who has her own, second flute) has them all try to play the flute Lillie brought, and Sun is mysteriously able to. The four Tapu suddenly appear and take Sun and the two flutes away; Gladion, Lillie, and Hapu follow them to the altar.
Round 25 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. When they arrive, they find Faba and Aether employees locked in combat with an Interpol agent on the path to the altar. Behind them, the two Cosmoem at the altar evolve into Solgaleo and Lunala. With Faba cornered, explanations about what Cosmog is exactly fly back and forth between the Interpol agent, Hapu, and Lillie. The agent receives a transmission about large numbers of UBs flying from the Po Town wormholes towards Poni Island; sensing the same, Solgaleo and Lunala lift Sun and Moon onto their backs and ready themselves for combat. The UBs arrive, and a chaotic battle begins. Gladion and Lillie notice that Solgaleo isn't fighting, and realize it's being held back by Sun, who is focused on Faba rather than the UBs. They watch as Sun runs towards Faba and confronts him: the small island Aether Paradise was built on once belonged to Sun's great-grandfather, and Faba acquired it after the man's death. At the time, to shoo away a young Sun, he told him he could buy the island back for 100 million yen, which Sun had taken seriously the whole time. Lillie wonders to Gladion if another person mentioned in the story might have been Mohn, but they're interrupted by a massive fissure opening up in the sky and ominous black claws pulling Solgaleo into it. Sun is also dragged in, and Moon and Lunala dive after him and vanish into the rift. The scene ends with an abrupt six-month timeskip.

Timeskip and Round 26

The fissure opened by the black claws doesn't close on its own. Poni Island becomes overrun with Ultra Beasts which attack anyone who approaches the island, making access nearly impossible. Wicke and an employee who regrets working for Faba take Gladion and Lillie to the Aether House on Ula'ula Island, where they operate independently of the Aether Foundation. At some point after the battle at the altar, Gladion began to show symptoms of his injuries from Null's evolution, and was unable to fully join the defense against the Ultra Beasts that has been ongoing.
Round 26 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. From a boat, Wicke sights Lusamine among a horde of docile UBs on Poni Island. Gladion, who is still suffering the symptoms of getting microwaved by dog but is also still clearly stewing in his assumption of responsibility for Everything, staggers out of his room and insists that he be allowed to go retrieve her. Wicke tells him to go lie down. There's some back and forth banter-summary between Wicke, the employee, Lillie, and Gladion about what had happened immediately after Solgaleo and Lunala vanished, and they agree that ultimately they should meet back up with the Kahunas, Captains, and Interpol agents for whatever their next move is. In the meantime, Wicke plans to return to Aether Paradise to gather information from employees who are less loyal to Faba.

Rounds 31 to 37: Aether Paradise

Before Gladion's next appearance in Round 31: Lusamine and the UBs vanish from Poni Island. Guzma is found alive but in poor condition on the island, and recounts how Lusamine had been allowing Nihilego to feed on her repeatedly.
Round 31 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Lillie has been coming and going with Wicke from the front line camp on Exeggcutor Island where the Kahunas, Captains, and Interpol congregate and monitor the situation. She returns to the Aether House with a pendant with a photo of their family inside it, received by one of the Captains from an amnesiac man - proof that Mohn didn't willingly abandon them. Lillie wants to use the pendant to try to convince Lusamine to stand down and "return her to normal". Gladion is skeptical, but proud of Lillie for "going down a better path" than him. He encourages her to confront Lusamine "while being who you want to be" (dressing in the style she'd picked out herself). She tells him that Lusamine is likely to emerge from a fissure that's opening above Mount Lanakila.
Round 33-34 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. While Lillie goes to Mount Lanakila to retrieve Lusamine from the site of the Big Final Battle, Gladion goes to Aether Paradise to take it back from Faba. He frees Moon, who had been taken captive, and confronts Faba. Ryuki, a trainer manipulated into acting as a bodyguard for Faba, jumps in. Gladion hands off Silvally and the case of memory drives to Moon so that she can fight her way back down to the lab and retrieve her own Pokemon. While securing an escape route for her, Gladion injures his hand.
Round 36 Bulbapedia, Mangadex. Gladion stops Ryuki and talks him down from the fight, because the fight is very silly. Faba has vanished. Ryuki runs off, and Silvally returns with Moon's medicine in hand but not Moon herself, who was retrieved by Lunala for The Final Battle. Gladion chases Faba to the Aether Paradise docks, where he had been about to make a getaway but was cornered by one of the Meowth raised by Sun's great-grandfather. Gladion arrives just in time to see Faba being dragged into a wormhole by a swarm of Nihilego.

Round 37 Epilogue and Post-canon

Rough summary of the Final Battle: the main threat was Necrozma, an Ultra Beast bent on absorbing all of the light from Alola (DO NOT ASK ME HOW THIS WORKS). It had been trying to bore through a wormhole into Alola for some time of its own volition, but the situation was aggravated by Lusamine's attempts to capture it in Ultra Space, which sent it into a frenzy. Multiple parties cooperated to fight back against Necrozma; Lillie and her allies extracted an unconscious Lusamine from the battlefield. Faba's minions with captured UBs interfered, but the UBs were scattered by the four Tapu and taken down by the Kahuna and Trial Captains. Zygarde, Sun, Moon, Solgaleo, and Lunala ultimately defeated Necrozma, who was then captured by the Ultra Recon Squad and taken back to the Ultra Megalopolis.
The epilogue takes place several months later. Wicke had taken command of the Aether Foundation and was reforming it. Lusamine had not recovered after being removed from the Nihilego fusion, and was about to be sent to Kanto for treatment. Gladion made sure that Professor Burnet would accompany Lillie in taking Lusamine to Kanto, but did not go himself; instead, he and Dulse went to find Faba in Ultra Space, accompanied (against Gladion's wishes) by Ryuki.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Known timeframes are Aether Paradise construction starting 5 years before chapter start (via Sun's backstory), Lillie running away 3 months before chapter start, and the mid-chapter timeskip being 6 months. Mohn can be assumed to disappear not too long before Aether Paradise construction starts, because his death sets off the property law clusterfuck in Sun's backstory.

Unknown timeframes are the length of time between Gladion running away and Lillie running away, and how many months between the fight with Necrozma and the epilogue (the narration only says "several"). In the games, Gladion runs away 2 years before the start of canon, but there are enough differences in his situation between Adventures and the games that this isn't certain to be the case in Adventures too.

Gladion's exact age is also not given. Lillie is vaguely implied to be about the same age as Sun and Moon (who are 11; so, 10-11 years old).

I headcanon the first unknown timeframe at 9 months and the second at at 2 months, so that in total, 20 months elapse between Gladion running away and his departure for Ultra Space in the epilogue. Rationale: in Adventures, Gladion is only recruited by Guzma in the first few chapters, rather than having already been established with Team Skull for a while. Type: Null is also unknown to the kahunas. I think a shorter timeframe explains his seeming less "settled-in" on the islands than he does in the games.

I also headcanon that he is 13 when he runs away and 15 in the epilogue; this would make him 9 when Mohn disappears, which seems right for his apparent age in the flashback to that time, and would make him about 3 years older than Lillie, which just seems right in general.

As far as Gladion's perception of canon events goes, this also means that he spent only about twice as much time on his own after running away as he did in Wicke's care after the Ultra Beast invasion begins. Post-canon Gladion is distinctly more mellow than pre-timeskip Gladion and of course there are several reasons why but I expect a big one is that he's been much more sedentary for half a year, which is practically forever when you're a kid.

Edited 2022-09-07 21:55 (UTC)

Canon evidence: at 6mos Wicke tells Gladion his "organs, muscles, and bones" have not healed from being blasted by dog beams and that he would not be capable of fighting a horde of UBs. He appears visibly exhausted/pained/unsteady at that moment. Not too long afterwards, he's well enough to go confront Faba. That battle isn't too physically strenuous on Gladion's part but he does have to hang onto Silvally for a vertical jump and he does grab a fucking flying shard of rock out of the air. He is then able to go into Ultra Space for a little adventure but it's not shown how much anyone argued with him about that.

Extrapolation: I mean they make it sound like he has some kind of fantasy radiation poisoning. "Organs, muscles, and bones" is weirdly specific.

I'm not going to probe too hard into fantasy Pokemon-world medical science but I'm going to take some cues from that, while downgrading the whole thing to much...MUCH less severe in the long term because they have fantasy Pokemon medicine.

His symptoms were severe shortly after the Poni Altar fight and got better over time; problems included GI issues, anemia, General Aches and Pains, weakness and tremors, fatigue/dizziness/nausea downstream of all that, and so on.

At his canonpoint, he can walk around as if nothing happened, but he still deals with:
- a kind of sensitive stomach
- fatigue/pain/dizziness that comes and goes unpredictably
- general lack of strength and endurance compared to how he was before everything

Edited 2022-12-15 20:10 (UTC)

Canon Summary

Extrapolation/headcanons: age and timeline

Dog microwave headcanon