FF6 - Brave New World

Gum Pods are (mostly) useless items, that are only used as a trade-in for the SuperBall item in the colosseum. They're mostly at the start of the game there to deter you from stealing things, since a lot of monsters early on also have strong counter-attacks specifically for Steal. Item steals are more or less restricted to humanoid enemies, so Locke should be focusing more on using Attack at this point in the game.

As for monsters two-shotting you, I remember that area being brutal as well, but not THAT brutal. Are Edgar/Terra in the back row? Spears and Tools both ignore row, as does Magic, so they'll survive better back there without a lack in firepower. Locke is still in danger, but he has a lot of evade to help him out at least. Sabin helps ease things out for now (Pummel/Suplex are great so be ready to spam them), and after Lete River the difficulty drops a bit since character levels are getting high enough to survive longer fights.