Serena's goal : What do you think it is?

[Dr. Buni]

Question: How can anyone be "kickbutt" and have no direction? Think about it: how can you be good at something without focusing on it first? And no, regardless of the matter that BW seems to think character development can happen offscreen and that skills can be acquired with no effort, it is still horrible writing. I will not accept that as an answer. I can understand your sentiment, but it seems you have already condemned the show since you don't think anyone is going to get anywhere. (a reasonable thought, but I fail to see the point in continuing if that is how you feel)

Uh, no Samurott. The XY series is yet to air, so the only thing I can say about it is based on the previous ones and judging by them, no one never achieves anything in the end. I am not lying, am I? They can always change that and make Serena achieve her goal by the end of XY, but what reason do I have to believe that such thing is going to happen? No, I am not condemning anything and I am really looking forward to watch the new series. I am just saying that I don't care about this "Serena must have a goal" thing. Her character could be enjoyable without needing to have a set goal.

I hope she battles much too but seeing every Gym Leader battle two times could end up a bit boring. But battling, sure I hope so too. Or maybe she wants to enter beauty contests with her pokemons???

It definitely could end up a lot boring, but it also could make the XY the best series so far. The writers could always make Ash and Serena's battle styles completely different, making their battles less repetitive. Ash's style is an all-out-attack, Serena could battle in a more defensive way or even use gimmick-y strategies. That is unlikely to happen, though.

 

[Silktree]

Many people say she might become a Pokemon stylist, advertising the customization features of X/Y, but for Pokemon themselves since no occupations directed towards human beings like in real life seem to exist in the anime world and every single aspect of life is Pokemon-oriented in some way.

I don't see this happening as the customization feature obviously pertains to the player characters rather than the Pokémon. This would be a pretty bad way to promote the feature.

 

[podin]

One battler in the group is enough, there's no need for more. The writers seem to think this way as well seeing that Iris and Cilan rarely battled despite the lack of obstacles.


Contests actually provided the anime with much needed diversity, too bad they ditched them for no reason...

May and Dawn got much spotlight and pushed Ash to the side

Which was by no means a bad thing.

 

[Dr. Buni]

I really don't see how one battler in the main cast of a series, that is mainly about battling, is enough. I just... don't understand this line of thought. It is like people want to watch Pokémon, but don't want to watch battles? Why watch this show then? If anything, they should focus even more in battling than before imo.

But putting battles aside, Serena's goal could be related to Pokémon-Amie, which would be still related to the Pokémon themselves (unlike aiming to be a stylist or something). That reminds me of the original owner of Brock's Vulpix. She used to give massages to Pokémon, right? Serena could aim to be... a better developed version of her... or something. I would approve of that.

 

[podin]

I really don't see how one battler in the main cast of a series, that is mainly about battling, is enough.

Again, the writers don't seem to share your view.

But putting battles aside, Serena's goal could be related to Pokémon-Amie, which would be still related to the Pokémon themselves

I plead ignorance, but wouldn't be that a rehash of Cilan's "goal"?

 

[Ashs Battle Coach]

Hard to say. As someone who mainly watches this show for the battles and the development, I'd want her to have some sort of battle orientated goal. But I agree with the idea that having her also do a gym quest would be too much. Battling the same gym twice over a pair of episodes would get boring. So I really don't know what I want her to do. But definetely something where she catches pokemon and develops them and trains them and they grow and achieve some sort of goal haha. Is that too vague?

 

[Trevenant]

Actually, I think I agree. Technically, there's nothing that redundant about having Serena battling gym leaders alongside Ash as long as they have different styles and strategies. I don't actually see how it could be more boring than, say, having an extra episode or two of meh filler.

 

[Jukain]

I don't understand what you're saying. What you're saying seems to suggest you want her to be a normal trainer, but with no goal? Why in the world would she be fighting gyms, then? Just for the sake of it? That'd be even worse than a redundancy. I don't count separate battle styles since it'd still be tedious to watch a battle against the same opponent twice. I know because I made the same mistake when I first starting writing fanfiction. I did change the tactics around to make it not so repetitive, and it still felt redundant. Maybe it would be interesting to not only change tactics, but pokemon as well, but that would suggest one of them being a superior level of trainer. The anime has not demonstrated this quality of gym leaders. They could, but it has not been done before. (Origin is a different continuity, this anime has not demonstrated the same process) I don't entirely agree with this thought, either, since it would make the higher level fight outshine the other. The gym leaders are supposed to be a major event regardless of level. Even though it would be hard for the less experienced one, we would know the gym leader was holding back, and the higher level fight would be that much more significant since we would see their true power, and make the lesser trainer that much smaller in comparison. It would make their journey less significant, no matter what it is. If you are after just making them be around for the sake of it, though, then I point you to all the companions we've had that were "just there". If anyone likes them, it's just for their personality. This does not justify a character's presence to me, though. Even though we never see anyone achieve their goal, to say they accomplished nothing is incorrect. A lot of them still experienced character growth enough to where they no longer needed elaboration. I am satisfied with how they left. Others that did not really accomplish anything, then there is no real loss since there was nothing to lose to begin with. However, with them, they might as well have not existed. Is this what you mean?

 

[Lyrebird]

To win as many Grand Slams as possible...oh wait wrong Serena. I guess to be mentored, it would be nice to see Ash taking a step back.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

Many people say she might become a Pokemon stylist, advertising the customization features of X/Y, but for Pokemon themselves since no occupations directed towards human beings like in real life seem to exist in the anime world and every single aspect of life is Pokemon-oriented in some way.

I don't see this happening as the customization feature obviously pertains to the player characters rather than the Pokémon. This would be a pretty bad way to promote the feature.

True, but what in the anime ever involves something that isn't related to Pokemon? Ever notice that almost every single aspect of life has Pokemon tied into it in some form, be it the Pokemon themselves or a Pokeball motif in some part of it, which sometimes makes me think that the humans in the Pokemon world are essentially obsessed with Pokemon. I know this may sound a bit off topic, but it's true.

 

[Silktree]

True, but what in the anime ever involves something that isn't related to Pokemon? Ever notice that almost every single aspect of life has Pokemon tied into it in some form, be it the Pokemon themselves or a Pokeball motif in some part of it, which sometimes makes me think that the humans in the Pokemon world are essentially obsessed with Pokemon. I know this may sound a bit off topic, but it's true.

That's why I don't think that the customization feature is related to her goal. She could change her clothes every now and then, but it would be really silly if that were the point of her existence.

 

[Master Cyrus]

To seduce Ash.

 

[Zeta]

This is what makes me wonder. After the "Iris experiment" the writers are back to using the female playable character, yet at this point it seems unlikely that she will play a primary role in the series (by "primary" I mean being the co-star or close to it).

It was out of necessity, not an experiment. Hilda's like 15. I believe that's the only reason she wasn't a companion of Ash.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

This is what makes me wonder. After the "Iris experiment" the writers are back to using the female playable character, yet at this point it seems unlikely that she will play a primary role in the series (by "primary" I mean being the co-star or close to it).

It was out of necessity, not an experiment. Hilda's like 15. I believe that's the only reason she wasn't a companion of Ash.

Serena looks at least as old as Hilda, and yet here she is. It's possible the writers just changed their minds about how to deal with older-looking PCs in three years, or that there was no other immediate alternative (ie no 10-ish girl gym leaders in Kalos), but Hilda's age didn't make it impossible for them to include her.

On the other hand, I don't think Iris's inclusion was an "experiment" at all. It's not like this was the first time we had a female gym leader as a traveling companion, and there's basically no reason the writers absolutely have to stick to PC-based girl companions. They just decided it was the better choice for BW. Given different games with different characters available, they can make different choices.

 

[Zeta]

Serena looks at least as old as Hilda, and yet here she is.

Yeah, apparently they de-aged her for the anime. Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Her proportions are totally different from the XY games.

 

[Master Cyrus]

Serena looks at least as old as Hilda, and yet here she is.

Yeah, apparently they de-aged her for the anime. Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Her proportions are totally different from the XY games.

It went from 7 heads and 4/7ths being her long legs to 6 heads and 1/2 being dedicated to her legs.

heard this from someone who studied art.

 

[97SaturnSL1]

Well her goal could be to find the Samurai who smells of sunflowers, but i honestly have no idea

 

[WindBlast]

To seduce Ash.

And I'm guessing that she is going to do a terrific job ~

 

[Caseydia]

To seduce Ash.

Maybe she will find her goal in a few episode like how May did. She doesn't need to have one right off the back especially when she's a starting trainer.

 

[Zeta]

Serena looks at least as old as Hilda, and yet here she is.

Yeah, apparently they de-aged her for the anime. Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Her proportions are totally different from the XY games.

It went from 7 heads and 4/7ths being her long legs to 6 heads and 1/2 being dedicated to her legs.

heard this from someone who studied art.

I don't know about art math, but she went from looking like a 14 year old with unusually long legs to looking like an 11 year old with insanely long legs. Her head's gotten a lot bigger and her chestular region and neck have shrunken.